The mission of Prince Harry to tame the British media has produced results in court. But the jury is out on whether it will have a broader impact or be just another chapter — or headline — in the long history of tabloids behaving badly.

Prince Harry was suing News Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful activities carried out by journalists and private investigators working for its papers, The Sun and the now defunct News of the World,

In a last minute deal made the day after the lawsuit was due to start, Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers agreed to pay “substantial damages” to Prince Harry and issued an apology, read by his lawyer David Sherborne, of the “serious intrusion by The Sun into his private life … including the unlawful gathering” of information on him.