Kensington Palace didn't do enough to 'protect' Kate Middleton amid health crisis and photo fiasco

LONDON, ENGLAND: Kensington Palace has reportedly come under immense criticism from several spheres for the way they handled Kate Middleton’s Photoshop blunder on the occasion of UK’s Mother’s Day. The criticism intensified as Kate released a poignant video message on March 22 to announce her cancer diagnosis.

Not only the social media users but PR experts are also slamming the palace for their mismanagement in the crisis.

After the speculations regarding Kate’s health and whereabouts went wild, the official accounts of the Prince and Princess of Wales shared a genial photograph of Kate with her three children.

Nevertheless, the photo elicited criticism after six leading photo hosting agencies served the photo with a “kill notice” citing the photo had been altered at the source.

After the doctored image garnered negative publicity, Kate took to the social media account to formally apologize for the photo and blamed her amateur photographic skills for the edits. 

PR expert Professor Kim Johnston of the Queensland University of Technology is accusing Kensington Palace of their mismanagement and the poor way they handled the botch.

PR expert Professor Kim Johnston slams the palace

In a recent interview with Yahoo Lifestyle Australia, the professor said, "From a public relations (PR) perspective, I can understand that the Palace may have thought that letting Kate take responsibility and apologize for altering the photo would resolve the issue.”

He continued, “Making an apology is a common and often effective crisis management response strategy used by organizations who take responsibility for a mistake.”

"However in this case, it is not unexpected to predict that the altered photo, combined with the circumstances surrounding the Princess’ absence, would intensify media and public interest in this issue and Kate’s condition,” added Johnston.

He noted on Friday, "Today’s disclosure that Kate was dealing with a cancer diagnosis at this time is very concerning as the Palace should have taken a greater role in anticipating the response to the photo and the apology strategy, and at the very least, protected her from this level of scrutiny.”

"I think most people who have heard about Kate’s diagnosis will look back on this situation with dismay and wonder how an institution like the Palace could allow this to get so out of hand,” concluded the PR expert.

Internet slams Kensington Palace for its way of handling crisis

Kensington Palace received immense criticism from social media users who slammed the institution for its way of handling the peer crisis.

One of the social media users said, "Kensington Palace lied, they got caught lying, tried to lie some more to get out of being caught lying, they even went as far as throwing their princess who is a cancer patient under the bus to do so. Now they have Kate sitting alone on that bench & who is to blame Guess?"

"I hope people feel bad” Actually I hope Kensington Palace’s PR team feels bad because I feel like you have to try to mess up this badly. Charles handled the PR around his cancer diagnosis without a problem," said someone else.

Another netizen said, "If they had just said, like in January, something like “Kate will be taking an extended break from public life for personal reasons, she will not be available for photos or press until further notice.” instead of the WEIRD photoshop double down thing, it would’ve been fine."

"I hope all of the Kensington Palace Comms Team get sacked. They handled this badly," declared another fan.

"I don't understand that with all of that money, why couldn't they hire a better PR or media team?" said someone else.

Meanwhile, another netizen said, "Perhaps William kept his PR people in the dark about Princess Catherine’s cancer diagnosis until now, and they were left to their own (disastrous) devices to make sense of what was going on. And now Catherine is finally well enough to try to clear this mess up herself."

 

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.