Prince Harry has announced another new job today – his second in 48 hours – as a celebrity commissioner for an American study into the ‘avalanche of misinformation’ in the digital world funded by a controversial billionaire whose business was blamed for helping wipe out newspapers.
The Duke of Sussex is joining the left-leaning Aspen Institute’s new Commission on Information Disorder in Washington DC along with 14 others including Kathryn Murdoch, the wife of Rupert Murdoch’s son James, who resigned from his father’s media empire last year.
The Aspen Institute is one of America’s best known, and best funded think tanks, drawing cash from rich donors and big businesses, including Facebook. The organisation, whose HQ is a few blocks from the White House, looks at all areas of US life and says its mission is to build a ‘free, just, and equitable society’.
Harry, who blames the press for emigrating to Los Angeles with his wife Meghan and son Archie last January, said in a statement today: ‘As I’ve said, the experience of today’s digital world has us inundated with an avalanche of misinformation, affecting our ability as individuals as well as societies to think clearly and truly understand the world we live in.
‘It’s my belief that this is a humanitarian issue and as such, it demands a multi-stakeholder response from advocacy voices, members of the media, academic researchers, and both government and civil society leaders. I’m eager to join this new Aspen commission and look forward to working on a solution-oriented approach to the information disorder crisis.’
The Sussexes, who have signed deals worth more than $100million with Netflix and Spotify, were accused of making various questionable statements during the Oprah interview, including claims about a secret wedding carried out by the Archbishop of Canterbury three days before the official one at a chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle. But their wedding certificate later proved this was a false statement.
Viacom CBS, who made the Oprah interview, were also accused of mangling and editing UK newspaper headlines to support its disputed claims about racist press coverage.
Harry’s new role as a ‘philanthropic leader’ is part-time, and will involve regular meetings. Joining him on the panel will be former Texas congressman Will Hurd, Sue Gordon, the former principal deputy director of national intelligence in the US, and Kathryn Murdoch, the ‘radical centrist’ daughter-in-law of billionaire media mogul Rupert.
The commission is being funded by billionaire entrepreneur Craig Newmark, who founded the Craigslist, a classified adverts website branded a ‘cesspool’ after it emerged hundreds of crimes were facilitated as a result of contact via the site, including women exploited in a growing ‘sex for rent’ scandal during the coronavirus pandemic. Craigslist has also been accused of wiping out newspapers by taking away the classified adverts they relied on to stay afloat.
Just last month Tucker Carlson said a ‘farcical’ study that claimed there is no real censorship of American conservatives on social media could not be taken seriously because it had no ‘reliable evidence to support it’ and came from an organization funded, in part, by the philanthropy of Mr Newmark.
Today it emerged Harry started his first proper job at a Californian startup dubbed life coaching Tinder for millennials in January – but they waited to announce it until after his Oprah interview was watched by tens of millions around the globe.
Harry’s newest position comes more than a fortnight after the Sussexes’ bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which the couple both criticised the British media.
Harry said the UK tabloid media was ‘bigoted’ and created a ‘toxic environment’ of ‘control and fear’.
James Murdoch’s wife Kathryn is another famous name on the 15-strong panel with Harry.
She has voiced her agreement that her husband’s family, which owns Fox News, must ‘put their country above their profits’ and disavow President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.
Mrs Murdoch, 47, expressed the sentiment in a tweet in November, saying she agreed with CNN host Jake Tapper, who had stated: ‘The Murdochs and the people at Fox have an obligation to put their country above their profits. It is very important that people make it very clear – that there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud.’
Her husband James stepped down from the board of Fox News parent News Corp in July, citing disagreements with some of the company’s editorial content.
James is known as the liberal Murdoch son, while his brother Lachlan’s views seem to be more aligned with those of his conservative father.
Earlier in 2020 Katrhryn spoke out about her ‘radical centrist’ politics in an interview with Politico’s Women Rule podcast.
‘This is the first time where I’ve really decided that I have a voice and I need to try to use it,’ said Kathryn, who has long quietly supported climate change causes after Al Gore convinced her the issue was urgent in a 2006 presentation.
‘The decisions we make in the next few years are going to have an impact on coming generations,’ Kathryn said. ‘I need to know that I’ve done everything that I can possibly do.’
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is funding the Aspen Institute’s new Commission on Information Disorder, with Harry its most high-profile member.
Two years ago Mr Newmark announced he was donating $20 million to the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism .
Newmark claimed he was doing it to build a sustainable future for trustworthy journalism.
The New York Times claims that Craigslist put a dent in newspaper classified ads and is often blamed, in part, for the industry’s revenue decline.
Newmark says newspapers started losing circulation and revenue ‘long before Craigslist.’
Craiglist, which is no longer run by Newmark, has been rocked by a series of scandals revealed by investigative journalism.
In January it emerged investors in the US website Craigslist are profiting from the exploitation of vulnerable young British women.
Men use the site to target university students – with some even specifying they seek ‘Oxbridge’ or ‘first class’ graduates.
Research from the charity Shelter suggests 30,000 women in the UK have been propositioned with explicit ‘arrangements’ since March. The arrangements are illegal and those convicted can be jailed for seven years, but there has never been a prosecution.
It was found that disgusting adverts are posted every day from across the UK – with a surge going online during lockdown.
In 2011 Craigslist was embroiled in a public row with a competitor after it branded the on-line classifieds website a ‘cesspool of crime’.
Internet marketplace Oodle commissioned ‘market research’ which identified 300 crimes in 2010 which were facilitated as a result of contact via Craigslist.
They included 12 murders and 105 robberies and led Oodle to conclude that ‘sadly Craigslist has become a cesspool of crime’.
Craigslist denied the claims as smears from a rival, but finally backed down after its founder Mr Newmark was criticised in a series of damaging TV interviews.
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