WELL, that was quite a week, wasn’t it?

The Earl and Countess of Dumbarton gave a high-profile interview on American television, in which the Countess raised several concerns about her treatment at the hands of some of her in-laws – although granny, Queen Elizabeth, was excluded from the criticism.

The Earl lamented that his father, the Duke of Rothesay, had stopped taking his calls. Commentators insisted that it was the biggest scandal to have rocked the family in decades, although some might question whether the transgressions of the black sheep uncle, the Earl of Inverness, were being conveniently ignored. As is his custom, the Earl of Forfar remained studiously silent.

That is how some of our readers might have liked us to report the Harry and Meghan saga – indeed we have one correspondent who regularly complains when we don’t use the royals’ Scottish titles; we’re a Scottish newspaper, so we should, shouldn’t we?

Well, no. The protocol is that we use them when they’re north of the Border, and in practice, only when they are on official duties. If Harry had ever visited Dumbarton (which he never has), he would likely have been the Earl had he been opening a factory, but Prince Harry if he were just on a stag weekend with his mates.

What is important, though, is not just how we style them, but how we report them.

There are of course two extremes. There is the saturation coverage of the tabloids, much of it salacious, a lot of of it disgraceful, and then there is the studied indifference formerly adopted by the Independent, which famously covered the birth of Princess Beatrice with the headline “Royal baby” above a report which read simply: “The Duchess of York gave birth to a 6-lb., 12-oz. girl in a London hospital.”

As you would expect, The Herald adopts neither of these approaches. It is our job to report the doings of an institution that underpins our constitution, that is the recipient of copious public funds. But we report these activities when they are newsworthy; not for us the Court Circular favoured by some (an excerpt from Tuesday’s Times: “The Duke of Cambridge this afternoon spoke to Mr Robert Horton (Responder Manager, South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust) via telephone...”).

We do not indulge in forelock-tugging, but nor do we stalk them or take paparazzi-style pictures. Our news coverage is temperate; you won’t find terms like “The Firm” or “Her Maj” there. But as we’ve stressed in these pages before, our columnists are free to take their own lines. Just this week, Iain Macwhirter, Andy Maciver, Catriona Stewart and Uzma Mir have aired their views on the Harry and Meghan saga.

Straight with the news, thought-provoking with our different Voices. It’s the way The Herald seeks to operate.