Harry coming home; now British press faces fire
With his secret duty in Afghanistan exposed, Prince Harry is recalled by Defense ministry. Editors, meanwhile, defend the joint agreement to keep a lid on the story.
LONDON — In a news town that lives and dies by the scoop, this was one of the juiciest stories around: Prince Harry, Queen Elizabeth's fun-loving, red-headed grandson, was going to war on the front lines of Afghanistan.
But wait, the Ministry of Defense said. Hold off on reporting it for awhile -- three long months, to be exact -- and you can have not only the story, but the works: Interviews with the prince in his rough desert troop quarters; video of him peering at Taliban positions and man-handling a machine gun; thoughtful comments from him about how the Queen gave him the news he was going to war; what it felt like to go without a royal shower for four days.
From the hallowed BBC to the raucous Sun, from the elitist liberal Guardian to the conservative Telegraph, they agreed. Prince Harry would have his war in secret.
The almost unprecedented news blackout lasted 10 weeks.
But secrets, in the end, have a short shelf life in the news business. A hint of the news trickled out on a German website on Wednesday, and by Thursday, it was all over the U.S.-based weblog, the Drudge Report. "Prince Harry Fights on Frontlines in Afghanistan: 3 Month Tour," Drudge proclaimed, sending British editors flying to remake the next day's pages
Today, the Ministry of Defense announced that Harry was coming home -- a flood of news that followed the breach of the embargo by international news sites a day earlier had compromised his safety and that of his fellow troops, the ministry said.
"Following a detailed assessment of the risks by the operational chain of command, the decision has been taken ... to withdraw Prince Harry from Afghanistan immediately," the ministry said.
Following the huge splash of stories, with a gritty, camouflage-clad Harry on nearly every front page, a new skirmish broke out. Should the media have agreed to keep quiet? Was the embargo an act of collective censorship in exchange for the right to print military propaganda at the end? Or, as the broad majority of the British public seemed to think, was a press corps former Prime Minister Tony Blair famously described as "feral dogs" exercising a rare degree of responsible restraint?
"I was amazed it lasted as long as it did," said Graham Dudman, managing editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun, which normally would rather chew off its own foot than make a deal along with competing tabloids, such as the Daily Mirror.
