For days, outlets have reported on pieces from Omid Scobie's Endgame that focused on the strained relationships between Prince William, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton, and even King Charles. Taken out of context, it is easy to mark off the book as just another tome about royal family drama.
But Endgame is a meticulously-reported, shockingly candid deep dive into the systems that maintain the royal family's image—the press, the palace staff with its courtiers, and the royal family members themselves. Following Charles' coronation, Scobie believed this new chapter offers a chance to have a conversation around the relevancy and place of the monarchy.
"I wanted to write something that could A, join that conversation, but also I guess provide an unvarnished, unbiased, fearless take on all of it, even if that came at the cost of me losing all of my connections and tomorrow no longer receiving an email from the palace ever again or anything like that," he told ELLE.com.
The threat of losing access is in part why the royal rota is more limited in their coverage: "Unlike the White House press pool, there is an expectation of perhaps adhering to a more royalist code of conduct in your reporting that, as you may notice, often the coverage in certain newspapers is quite breathless and puff piece-esque," Scobie said. "If you try and divert from that, you will definitely get comeback from the palace who will question why you are not doing the same as everyone else."
But Scobie is not afraid of the pushback or burning his bridges. |
