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Harry and Meghan's treatment echoes Diana's, late princess's brother says

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  • the headline was changed: Harry and Meghan's treatment echoes Diana's, her late princess's brother says

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  • The brother of Princess Diana, Charles Spencer, said her son, Harry, and his wife, Meghan, should be given official security.
  • Diana died aged 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash as photographers pursued her on motorbikes, sparking an outpouring of grief and a reckoning over whether the media bore some responsibility after it splashed details of her life across front pages for years.
  • Diana's family accused the royals of showing a lack of support or care towards the late princess before her death, a charge that was repeated by Harry and Meghan about their personal experience before they quit royal duties in 2020 to move abroad.

3 sentences from our version of the report, chosen to cover it. Nothing here is written; every line is in the article below. How

Earl Spencer has been speaking to media in the run-up to the publication of his book about Diana the now-King Charles.

Headline check

All two things this headline claims are in the report.

Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. How this is checked

The brother of Princess Diana, Charles Spencer, said her son, Harry, and his wife, Meghan, should be given official security.

Earl Spencer said the media now treats the couple the same way they treated Diana in the years leading up to her death.

His upcoming book about Diana is critical of the now-King Charles.

Diana died aged 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash as photographers pursued her on motorbikes, sparking an outpouring of grief and a reckoning over whether the media bore some responsibility after it splashed details of her life across front pages for years.

In the book, Earl Spencer accuses Diana's former husband, the then-prince of Wales, of sounding "giddily elated" in the hours after her death and said a Charles had told Spencer that the world would forget Diana soon enough.

Asked by the BBC how he could prove the conversations had taken place, Earl Spencer said he had included a specific line in his much-lauded eulogy at Diana's funeral to counter the comments, ending it by saying she would "never be extinguished from our minds".

Diana's family accused the royals of showing a lack of support or care towards the late princess before her death, a charge that was repeated by Harry and Meghan about their personal experience before they quit royal duties in 2020 to move abroad.

Earl Spencer said his revelations about Charles would not come as a surprise to Harry or his older brother, heir-to-the-throne Prince William, and said while he knew many more details about the king he had chosen not to include them.

Shortened to 1 minute of reading, this version reads 5.7 on the Niral Score.

You are reading our version, not theirs. This is ABC News's report shortened to its most important sentences, in plainer words, with verdicts and loaded words taken out. Plain description stays, and so do adjectives that carry a fact, such as "former" or "federal". The reporting, the facts and the quotations are theirs — quotations are never edited — and the indicators beside it measure this version. Hover or tap Adjectives to see every one left in the text.

How outlets headlined it

Each outlet's own headline. Struck through: the loaded words our version leaves out. Plainest first.

  • ABC News Harry and Meghan's treatment echoes Diana's, late princess's brother says plain
  • WAtoday Diana’s brother is right to be furious with Charles over Harry and William plain

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by WAtoday, The Age, Brisbane Times. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet Niral ScoreAdjectivesSourcingSentimentHappiness
ABC Newsas they published this story 9.6 10 77 -0.4 20.9
Mundane Readneutralized from ABC News 6.7 8 77 -0.2 20.9

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