Question about your tracking process, if you wouldn’t mind sharing?
Do you keep a list of journalists, who they’re employed by, and have them ranked in some way regarding whether they have legitimate palace sources or legitimate Sussex sources, or the like? How do you personally weigh the information? Or is it more basic: this is broadsheet vs this is tabloid? It seems that Rebecca English has legitimate sources, while working for The DM. In that example then, it seems that it could be quite a task to determine the veracity of any claims.
Not an official list. I don't think I've ever sat down and written it out, and most of it I've picked up by osmosis being around the royal-watching world long enough. Plant might've had a list, though.
All of the official rota reporters have legit sources within the monarchy and some have sources who are family members themselves. I don't believe they share sources, though. So generally you can take them/their sources at their word. But they're not infallible, and they do get things wrong so you should always take their exclusives with salt. For example, Roya Nikkhah claimed The Queen's great-grandchildren would appear in the Royal Windsor Horse Show 2022 because she was given footage of them playing on a carriage - which ultimately didn't happen but that also begs the next question: was it supposed to happen and then it got cancelled because the parents were spooked by all the attention or was it never a thing to begin with? That's when the gut check comes into play and lean back on your experience as a royal-watcher to decide if the exclusive/leak is true or not.
(For instance in this case about the kids being in the RWHS, I don't think it was ever true, for the simple reasons that 1 - that was too many kids for one carriage, 2 - George, Charlotte, and Louis only ever appear in public with their parents (or one of them) so William or Kate would've had to be in the RWHS too, which would've taken attention away from everything/everyone else, and 3 - you can't have all the great-grandchildren without Archie and this was very much the era of 'sacrifice the Cambridges to appease the Sussexes' but without the then-Cambridges involved, does anyone really care about the great-grandchildren? So either Roya's source was wrong or Roya saw 1+1 and made 5.)
Where it gets a little more dubious/questionable is with the reporters who aren't in the rota. That's when you really have to be careful, because it's not as certain or as specific what kind of sources they have - do they have legit first-hand sources (people actually in the palaces) or are their sources third- fourth- fifth-hand gossip (my roommate's cousin's neighbor's sister-type of loose connection)? Usually you can tell based on how the source is described or the kind of information they have. For instance, if the information is super generic and kind of obvious, that's more of a gossip connection and you can just enjoy it as entertainment but if the information is super detailed and slightly random, then it's probably more of a legit source/insider.
Really quick in case you're not familiar: the rota is the press pool that covers the BRF (like the royal equivalent of the White House Press Association). The rota is comprised of British print journalism, press photographers and photojournalists, and the broadcast networks. Digital media, independent journalists, and international media are not part of the rota (Omid describes this in Endgame and he does have valid points on this). How the rota works is that while anyone can be credentialed to attend an event with the royals, not everyone can go inside, or if it's a restricted event (like the investitures or something sensitive like Kate's Royal Marsden visit), not everyone can attend.
In those cases, one representative from each of the medias in the rota - one press journalist, one photographer, and one broadcast network - will go inside with the royal or attend the exclusive event and then afterwards, write up a summary and share their footage with everyone else in the rota. They don't *have* to share with non-rota but they mostly do as a professional courtesy.
Everyone else who's credentialed for the visit/event but was not given the rota assignment will attend anyway and cover the comings and goings outside or get B-roll footage/interviews with the locals to beef up their reports.
The print media in the rota is The Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Evening Standard, Daily Mirror. The broadcast media in the rota is ITV, BBC, and Sky News.
Camilla Tominey writes for The Telegraph. She also was once significantly targeted by Sussex Squad back in the early days and in those days (a little less so nowadays), Sussex Squad moved at Meghan's beckoning.
Roya Nikkhah writes for The Sunday Times. She usually gets the big milestone birthday/anniversary writeups and occasionally an exclusive interview.
Rebecca English writes for the Daily Mail. She is also the head of the rota and responsible for handing out UK assignments - meaning she gets the schedules and she decides who on the press journalism rota gets to go inside. Typically she assigns the events with the Wales children to herself and it does annoy the others but that has gotten her close to/with KP.
Valentine Low writes for The Times. He is the co-head of the rota and responsible for foreign assignments - when the royals travel abroad, Low decides who goes inside or to the exclusive event. He's a bit more even handed with it than Rebecca is. A lot of his sources, to me, seem to be more staff than principals.
Edit: Apparently Low is retired now. I didn't know that! Then he's definitely not doing the foreign assignments anymore. Maybe it is Kay who does that now?
Dan Wootten used to write for The Sun. I'm not sure if he was ever actually part of the rota himself, but The Sun as a publication is part of the rota so that's why he's here on this side of the list. I don't know a whole lot about Dan, just the Megxit stuff, so I think most of his sources were from the Sussex side of Kensington Palace.
Richard Eden is a society reporter from The Daily Mail. He gets mostly gossip. Always do your homework with him.
Richard Kay also writes for the Daily Mail, still has some old-school palace sources - I believe mostly from Clarence House these days. Diana used to work with him so most of his sources (to me, I could be very wrong here) seem to be from that era. Personally I don't consider him to be someone who has a lot of sources now, he seems to mostly be in the commentary business than in reporting, but that's just me.
(Also quick sidebar here: I don't remember any more who does the foreign assignments for the rota. I think it's Valentine Low, but it could also be Richard Kay. It's one of the two.)
Rhiannon Mills is a reporter for Sky TV, previously used to write for The Sun. I only ever saw her coverage in relation to Kensington Palace, Harry specifically. Harry once blew up at her on a foreign tour and she has gotten some Sussex Squad ire, so plausibly her Sussex information was correct back in the day.
Bryony Gordon started at the Daily Express, then moved to Sunday Express, then Daily Mirror, then The Telegraph, and now she's with Daily Mail. I don't know a whole lot about her royal reporting other than I know her for her Sussex coverage, so she has good Sussex sources but no others. You can trust her writing about the Sussexes as I think she's in love with Harry and the writing I'm familiar with has been flattering about the Sussexes and negative about everyone else.
Not in the Rota Royal Correspondents
Katie Nicholls is currently a freelance reporter, mostly known for working with Vanity Fair these days. She started her career as rota, writing for the Daily Mail so she has some sources but most of her exclusives don't really pan out and/or it's more of the gossip variety. For instance, one of her sources is/was a girl that Kate went to Marlborough with, that Kate didn't keep in touch with, and Katie kept passing off the girl's info as exclusives.
The one story that Katie did exclusively break is Meghan's tantrum in front of The Queen about tasting egg in the food when she specifically said no egg during a tasting with the chef.
Omid Scobie used to write for Us Magazine, an American tabloid. He mostly worked out of Kensington Palace and a lot of KP exclusives through a very close friendship with Meghan because he supposedly used to date Markus Anderson. He was iced out by KP and the actual rota after publishing Finding Freedom and doesn't have palace sources anymore. (He writes about this in Endgame.)
If what Scobie wrote/writes criticized William and Kate or was negative, it was safe to assume the Sussexes leaked to him because of how close he was with Meghan.
Tom Sykes writes for The Daily Beast. His sources lean Hollywood/Sussex so most of his exclusives are either from the Sussexes about the BRF or from Hollywood about the Sussexes. Not really one for palace sources, IMO but (edit) he does have aristo connections that anons say are pretty valid.
Jack Royston writes for Newsweek, who is not part of the rota officially but is included in the gentleman's agreement much like Scobie was. His sources lean Sussex so I don't think he has many palace sources, if any.
Piers Morgan used to be a TV broadcaster, now he freelances on social media. His sources are Camilla and the Yorkies. You can generally trust that anything he attributes to the royal family as being accurate, but he won't ever name names.
So that's everyone I'm familiar with who covers the BRF. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten and/or others I don't know. If anyone else wants to chime in, please feel free!
Like I said, whether you trust the reporter and/or their sources is really up to you. For me, I've been following the BRF and reading the coverage long enough that I have a general understanding of what to see as accurate and what I need to do more research on, but I really can't explain what that process is other than "it's a gut check."
And also as I said, the reporters and the sources do get things wrong. Sometimes they get it wrong on a big scale, like Roya's claim about the RWHS. Sometimes they get it wrong on a smaller scale, like Katie Nicholl's exclusives from Kate's old school "friend" that were usually incorrect. And sometimes the BRF tells different stories to the rota or the sources and play them off one another - for instance, what we saw this week with Camilla's story that Charles has met both Sussex kids and Rebecca's story that Charles has only met one of the kids, so when dueling narratives like that come up, that involves doing more research for other similar stories/reveals to try and find the continuity because usually, whichever story matches earlier versions is usually the correct one and whichever doesn't match is usually spin, backtracking, or the source doesn't know.
I know this doesn't answer all of your questions, but I hope this helps! Please, feel free to ask more questions if you've got them!
