- A British journalist said the royal family is "safe" as long as they present themselves as "dull."
- Ian Hislop appeared on the two-part BBC documentary "The Princes and the Press" on Monday.
- "The basic job is to sit in the rain and wave," he told BBC media editor Amol Rajan.
A British journalist and editor said the royal family is safe from criticism in the media "as long as they are dull" in a new documentary that aired on Monday.
Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, a satirical and current affairs news magazine, made the comment during the second installment of the BBC's two-part documentary series "The Princes and the Press."
Referencing a baby shower that Meghan Markle attended in New York in February 2019 for the birth of her first child Archie during the documentary, Amol Rajan, the BBC's media editor, presented British newspaper headlines that outlined the costs and described the event as "devastating," "extravagant," and "glitzy."
Hislop told Rajan that royals avoid this type of scrutiny from select publications "as long as we feel they're having quite a boring life involving dogs and horses and Scotland and other things we're not terribly jealous of."
Hislop said: "The minute they're having a good time, that all looks a bit too much fun, and the basic job is to sit in the rain and wave."
Rajan then spoke to Rachel Johnson, a 56-year old columnist, broadcaster, and the sister of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said there are "women journalists" who view Kate Middleton as the "perfect template" of what they want royal women to be.
Johnson described Middleton as someone who is "not political, doesn't open her mouth very much in public, who makes short scripted speeches on very safe subjects."
She implied that this is a reason for the widely recognized difference in scrutiny that Middleton and Markle received from British tabloids.
"Whereas Meghan Markle will talk about period poverty, she will talk about racism, she will talk about female empowerment," Rachel said. "These are trigger subjects in this country where the royal family, despite being led by the Queen for 70-odd years, is still a very patriarchal, hierarchical country."
Addressing this difference in negative media coverage during her sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, Markle said "Kate was called 'Waity Katie,' waiting to marry William."
"While I imagine that was really hard — and I do, I can't picture what that felt like — this is not the same. And if a member of his family will comfortably say, 'We've all had to deal with things that are rude,' rude and racist are not the same," she told Winfrey.
Representatives for Rachel Johnson and Ian Hislop did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.