Drudge Report Spread the News worldwide that Prince Harry was deployed in Afghanistan
Military leaders in Britain have blasted some of those that leaked the news that Prince Harry was fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but the reality is, it's surprising that the media blackout lasted this long.
Britain media outlets had agreed to a blackout on the story, and until the story when global, had adhered to the agreement.
Chief of the General Staff and professional head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, had this to say about the story leaking:
"I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us.
"This is in stark contrast to the highly-responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number of overseas, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations.
"After a lengthy period of discussion between the MoD and the editors of regional, national and international media, the editors took the commendable attitude to restrain their coverage."
How the story emerged out of the blackout
Evidently the story was initially published last month in all things, an Australian women's magazine called New Idea. From there it was thought a German tabloid "Bild" had ran the story yesterday, but it now seems it was another German paper called the "Berliner Kurier."
From there "The Drudge Report" picked it up, and of course from there the story went global.
Response from British Media
The executive foreign editor for the Daily Telegraph in Britain, Con Coughline responded saying, "There was this gentleman's agreement not to write about it, not to broadcast the fact that he was in Helmand Province.
"I think like a lot of other people there's a frustration that the gentleman's agreement that was undertaken with the British army and with the British media has been broken. It's not something that we wish for."
My Response
With no one but traditional media outlets knowing about the deployment of Prince Harry, the leak had to come from within the establishment.
Why would it come from there? They probably wanted the agreement broken so they could have an excuse to cover the story. They knew if Drudge got hold of it the story would be fair game.
The reason they would want that to happen is to sell newspapers and get people visiting TV broadcasts and news web sites. They got their wish.
In other words, this was probably a controlled leak, contrary to the posturing that it was outrageous or reckless to release the story. The fact that it happened a couple weeks before the end of Harry's stint in Afghanistan seems to point in that direction.
Why blackouts can't work
As far as news blackouts go, it's highly unlikely they really could work for any period of time in our current news climate. Everything, everywhere is exposed today. It may take time to discover it, but a lot less than in the past. People around the world are looking everywhere to sniff out a story; including amateur news sleuths. That's the new media world we now live in.
The best hope to keep things under wraps is for a short period of time. Unless its absolutely connected to national security issues, we won't be seeing many long-term secrets hidden from the public eye any longer.
Not only don't blackouts really work any longer, they can now be used as a tool to get a story out there into the public eye. That's probably what happened with this story.
The powers that be wanted to get the story of Prince Harry out there, and let the public swoon over his courageous battle against the enemies of Britain and the world. To hold a story back, and then release it as a discovered secret, is one of the best tools to drive interest and get the public engaged. As you can see: it worked.
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