Behind the News — February 29, 2008 04:12 PM

Harry Situation

The British press and “the great silence: redux”

By Megan Garber

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I think the critical distinction that much of the discussion on this subject misses is that between embargo and blackout. It's crucial that the media's agreement to the military proposal was not everlasting: the moment the story broke abroad, the press here leapt all over it. So in the long-term, the public didn't miss out on any information. You might draw an analogy (albeit a severely limited one, because of this case's 'prior prior restraint' element) with a hostage situation, where the media will tend to be similarly complicit until the 'live' situation has reached a conclusion. (There's a justificatory piece that ponders this on the BBC website, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/02/news_blackout.html.) The result of agreements like this is reporting which is in the end significantly better informed, and actually in this instance much more informed than I have any interest in being - unnecessary shit now swilling around in my head now includes but is not limited to the young prince's preferred brand of toothpaste.

To strike this kind of bargain with the military, or another branch of the establishment, will obviously seem unsavoury if there's no other justification for it than superior access, but if there's another legitimate reason for the embargo, I do think it's perfectly possible to maintain a healthily critical view of the armed forces at the same time as making the deal, and so long as it's a specific and limited arrangement with the access offered being on the story in question, and not some kind of quid pro quo about future favours. And the reason I think it's OK in spite of the fact that the arrangement isn't for something unavoidable, like a hostage situation, but was cooked up in advance: there is nothing substantive about the story that particularly develops. It's just harry calling airstrikes on the taleban and playing a bit of football in a fairly repetitive way. Perhaps this is close to heresy, since news is definitively what happens now - but it doesn't seem to me that anything was lost to the public as a result of this being delayed, particularly since the argument about the rights and wrongs of his deployment was given an extensive airing last summer when a tour in Iraq was mooted, and since the serious public interest angle, as opposed to the cor blimey harry in combats killing foreigners angle, is actually quite limited. (God bless the independent for not getting carried away. Look out for quite a funny treatment in the sunday edition.)

I agree with you entirely about the schizophrenic attitude of the press to the royals: the element of the story that I find disturbing, if predictable, is actually the mutual love-in after the event. All the praise heaped on the media by the government, clarence house, etc seems a bit much, and moves the deal from a straightforward transaction - embargo for access - to the kind of thing where you begin to feel dubious about how balanced future coverage will be, since all this hearty bidirectional backslapping may create a sense of obligation. Besides, the media hasn't been particulary virtuous, it's just taken an obvious business decision, because no-one wants to be the only paper to refuse a deal like this - you'd get absolutely crucified, especially the tabloids - and because you get to run such concentrated guff about it for days afterwards with far better photos and interviews than you'd get otherwise. (I think an interesting thought experiment if you're against the silence is to put yourself in the position of an editor and decide if you would have refused the deal even if everyone else was agreed to it - that would take some nerve.)

Really interesting piece, by the way, and that reminds me of the other part of it that concerns me: nothing as thoughtfully analytical, for or against the embargo, has appeared in the press over here, and although a lot of British journalists are very scathing about american journalists being excessively interested in their own navels, I wish we were a bit more self-critical. Even though I finally think that the deal was in the end justified, it worries me that it probably wasn't thought about as carefully as it would have been in the US. (I find it fascinating that it didn't break over there sooner, actually - I'd love to read a piece about whether anyone in the US press knew about it sooner and decided not to publish, especially given it appeared on that Australian thing so early.)

This is definitely too long for a comment, but I am in a lull at work and I have to look busy.

Posted by archie on Sat 1 Mar 2008 at 09:26 AM

Thanks for such a thoughtful comment, Archie; I appreciate it.

After I posted the piece on Friday, I came across an article in the Daily Mail archives that claims that Harry, after his graduation from Sandhurst in 2006, essentially gave the military an ultimatum: deploy me or I quit the service. While I respect the prince’s desire to see action—it likely is genuine, PR benefits aside, and therefore to be commended—the whole ultimatum angle reinforces my main problem with the embargo: everyone bending over backwards to fulfill that desire. The embargo was, agree with it or not, a conspiracy, in that it involved the military, the press, and the royal family. (Clint Hendler pointed out to me on Friday that the Windsors even changed their normal William-and-Harry Christmas picture this year, since a Wills-only photo would have aroused suspicion. Yep: the thing trickled down to a holiday card!) Not to be all Magna Carta about it, or anything, but it strikes me as a bit baffling, all this effort to do a prince’s bidding.

And I absolutely agree that the public didn’t lose much, in this instance, being deprived (for a while) of the great investigative stories that were Harry Playing Football/Harry Riding a Motorbike/Harry Removing Dust from His Eye. I’m with you on the ridiculousness of the majority—the vast majority—of the stories that came out about his deployment…is this what everyone was making such a fuss about missing out on?? (Although it’s worth mentioning that the terms of the embargo meant that news orgs, while they had embeds with Harry, also depended heavily on the military for photos/reports/etc…which would explain the extremely odd and somewhat disturbing “war can be fun!” cast of many of the reports about his deployment.) But I'm more concerned with the embargo itself, rather than the stories it (finally) produced. Because the hostage or kidnapping analogy of information-withholding is appropriate, we both seem to agree, only to an extent: those situations have already occurred once the press learns about them. In this instance—and this is my other main problem with the embargo—the press expressly enabled Harry’s deployment through its agreement to the blackout. It all seems to have ended fine (Harry’s back, safe and sound, and none of his comrades were hurt, as far as we know), but it’s not difficult to imagine a different scenario: in which word did leak out via a quieter outlet than Drudge’s megaphone, and the “bad people” Harry’s cap refers to quietly learned of his whereabouts. Had that led to the injury—or worse—of Harry or others, I wonder whether the public reaction to the embargo would have been different. And that the nightmare scenario didn’t play out is, it seems to me, beside the point: the embargo enabled its potential, and that’s what matters here, as far as the right-call-or-not question is concerned.

As for the embargo participants, according to Reuters, it was “British media and selected international outlets” that signed on to it. I’m looking into who those “selected international outlets” were, exactly; if I find anything noteworthy, I’ll put up a post about it. Thanks again for writing, and here's to more lulls at work.

Posted by Megan Garber on Sun 2 Mar 2008 at 09:39 PM