🗞️ Story file #927
UK police confirm receipt of letter with claims against Meghan's father
Oct 24, 2 PM ET to Oct 25, 6 AM ET
- 7outlets carried it
- 🫏3 · 2 · 2🐘left · center · right
- 16 hourson the front pages
- 7front pages at once, at its peak
- 24 minof TV captions
- 2 of 2parts of a saga
👣 How this story traveled: from the front pages that broke it, out through TV, radio and the shows, into what people retold and what fact-checkers examined, and on into the saga it is part of. Everything here is matched to the story by our tools, so a link can be wrong; the trackers' pages say how each is made.
- Oct 24, 1 PM ETfirst on TV: BBC News
- Oct 24, 2 PM ETfirst on a front page: The Sun
- Oct 24, 4 PM ETpeak: on 7 front pages
📰 Spread
the front pages that ran it, hour by hour
📌 linked by aggregators: Google News
💬 quoted: “child sex abuse” “reviewing handling”
✏️ 2 outlets ran more than one headline on it (reworded, or a follow-up)
- New York Post (2 wordings): “Police confirm if Meghan Markle was sent bombshell letter accusing dad Thomas of child sex abuse” → “Red flags Thomas Markle’s ex-wife sent 2019 letter shared with Meghan warning of his alleged child abuse: sources”
- The Guardian (2 wordings): “Scotland Yard says it shared allegations about Meghan’s father with her but not other forces” → “Met says it shared allegations about Meghan’s father with her but not other forces”
Every outlet's first headline (7), left to right by AllSides rating
The Guardian
Scotland Yard says it shared allegations about Meghan’s father with her but not other forces Oct 24, 10 AM ET
CBS News
U.K. police confirm it received letter with claims against Meghan's father Oct 24, 10 AM ET
The Independent
UK police admits it did not pass claims about Meghan’s father Thomas Markle to other authorities Oct 24, 9 AM ET
BBC
Met Police says letter with claims about Meghan's father not shared with other law enforcement Oct 24, 9 AM ET
Reuters
UK's Met police says it sent allegations letter to Meghan and not other forces Oct 24, 4 PM ET
The Sun
LETTER PROBE UK cops ‘reviewing handling’ of note sent to Meg about dad’s ‘child sex abuse’ SCOTLAND Yard has referred itself to the police watchdog over the letter, which allegedly detailed accusations against Thomas Markle Snr, 82. Oct 24, 2 PM ET
New York Post
Police confirm if Meghan Markle was sent bombshell letter accusing dad Thomas of child sex abuse Oct 24, 10 AM ET
📡 Broadcast
TV, radio, and the shows that talked about it
📺 On TV
- Police confirm letter on Meghan's father claims BBC News, 9 min
- Meghan broke contact with father over abuse allegations BBC News, 5 min
- Duchess cites abuse allegations in letter BBC News, 4 min
- Duchess rather claims BBC News, 3 min
- Report claims Duchess of Sussex accused father BBC News, 3 min
- Meghan cuts ties with father over claims BBC News, 46 s
🧶 Retelling
what people online made of it
🦗 Nobody's retelling it online yet, as far as the daily reports of the last week can tell.
🗣️ names in it: Met Police Meghan Markle Thomas Markle Scotland Yard UK police
🔎 Checking
what the fact-checkers looked into
🧐 No fact-checker has taken it on yet.
🧵 Persistence
the running story it belongs to
🧵 Meghan Markle father abuse probe
Philippines investigates Thomas Markle over child sex abuse images
Oct 23, 7 AM ET
UK police confirm receipt of letter with claims against Meghan's father (this story)
Oct 24, 2 PM ET