IN TIMES OF WAR, when PR mates unashamedly with frenzied nationalism, heroes are born by the dozen. It is a union the national media facilitates joyfully, never mind the ethical questions ignored therein.

Prince Harry’s rebirth is remarkable even by that standard. If in the past the media had only been passive or active participants in such passions, this time around it has been pronouncedly proactive.

I am all for responsible journalism, but I am not convinced by the ‘responsibility’ the British media showed in Harry’s Afghan adventures. I have three issues with it.

One, like Jon Snow, I believe the decision erodes media credibility. Particularly so, given the premeditated nature of the event. This was no spontaneous episode that had to be contained — Harry didn’t wake up one fine morning and go to Afghanistan on his own, he was sent there — and as such there was no ethical compulsion on the media to agree to an embargo. It agreed because it managed a backroom barter: here is our silence, now you give us Harry in soundbites and videoclips.

As a journalist fairly familiar with military actions, I understand that agreements at the tactical level form the heart of many war reports. I will even say all reports involve some kind of a ‘deal’ — no source talks to you for the pure love of talking, there is always a quid pro quo.

While I am reasonably comfortable with that at a personal level, I am not so with a strategic deal of this sort. It was not as if there was a national peril looming and the media had to close flanks and rush to uphold its responsibility to the society. Even if that was the case, I am not sure that is the best strategy, but that is another argument.

So the media did what it did for a ‘better’ story. I am sure the decision was debated, even “agonized” over, but the point is it went through — and something tells me the editors were thinking more of circulation and audience figures and page views than quality journalism.

All in all, it reminds me a bit of the arms deals you see in movies.

The kind in which regimes buy guns, receive kickbacks — and the public carries on oblivious.

Mr Chomsky, you were right

The public carried on oblivious. That is my second point.

Public opinion is crucial in a democratic society, we all know. We also know the media’s fundamental responsibility is to provide for a public sphere, an arena where citizens can exchange thoughts and ideas and question political will.

By agreeing to a blackout, the British media did exactly the opposite. Not only did it not provide for an informed public sphere, it did not provide for any public sphere.

Worse, it strangled the life out of one. That is first-degree murder.

Result? No debate on a decision of political significance (let me point you to Simon Jenkin’s arguments for why this is significant). Some 15 MoD officials, the media, and the prince’s family and close friends knew of it — and they, I am sure you will agree, do not constitute the general public.

I guess Mr Chomsky was right.

Plugs and princely servings

More alarming is what happened after Matt Drudge did his bit.

Even as the media patted itself on the back for the ‘restraint’ it showed with one hand, with the other it dished out princely servings of Harry topped with every sinful dressing in the spin world.

There was Harry firing a machine gun, Harry on a motorbike; Harry shirtless, Harry tucking into jam and biscuits; Harry playing rugby, Harry ‘patrolling’ on foot; Harry talking of mom, Harry rejecting the ‘hero’ label…

As ‘anti-establishment’ British Parliamentarian George Galloway put it, the media gave him to us “as the pin-up of the armed forces, one of the lads, full of derring-do, a British hero on Afghanistan’s plains straight out of Tennyson or Kipling”.

This is all too slick for my sceptical mind. I can’t believe the boy prone to publicity bloopers till the other day is suddenly doing and saying such pat things all on his own.

I certainly can’t believe the mainstream journalists were taken in by this ‘transformation’ either.

The sheer volume, the all-positive spin, the slickness of it, all points to media management and compliance. Not just on what to cover when, but on how to as well. God help us if this was the “deeper insight into a new side of Prince Harry” that Society of Editors chief Bob Satchell promised us.

The long and short of it is that publicists have managed to turn Harry into a hero overnight. And the media, the mediator of the public, its watchdog, processed — nay, happily assisted — it with no questions asked.

Perhaps Harry is the stuff heroes are made of. Perhaps he isn’t. As of now we have no evidence, bar the words of sources — and the media — recorded in a prearranged PR exercise.

They used to have a word for such reportage in old-fashioned journalism: plug.

The cost of compliance

In postscript, a few questions…

If you are not part of a deal, can you really “blow” it? The “understanding” on the Harry story was between the MoD and British editors. In other words, the “foreign press” — read New Idea, Bild and Drudge Report – were not under embargo. So were they “irresponsible”? Or were they doing their duty to their readers, who, not incidentally, are not British?

Given the extent to which the British army went to ensure Harry’s security (they spent nearly half a year just negotiating media silence), how credible is the claim Harry ran “the same risks as everyone else in his battle group”?

From what I read on discussion boards, the majority of British public appears happy with the blackout. Could this be because the British media supported it and hence took pains to persuade the public to see its way?

If the public is happy with one blackout, will it embolden the media to go for more of such in future?

All in all, was the exercise worth the price of media compliance? Did it achieve something in the larger scheme of things?

I see one positive. This debate.

See also: Whose prince? Whose war?

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Discussion forums and online polls mostly say the media was right to agree to the embargo. There is also anger against the American Drudge Report and the Australian New Idea.

The Daily Mail, Sun, and News of the World posted online polls on the topic, while the BBC ran a message board with the question: ‘Should the British media have agreed to a black-out of the news that Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan?’

Ninety-one per cent of those polled on the Daily Mail felt the media was right to keep Harry’s secret. So did 90 per cent on the Sun.

On the News of the World, there was 90 per cent support.

On Guardian Online, while many criticised Harry for going to war, roughly 80 per cent were happy with the media blackout.

The BBC’s message board received more than 270 responses, of which an estimated 80 per cent were supportive of the media. Also debated was the question whether Harry is a hero or a liability to international relations.

“To talk about the media,” reads a response, “is missing the main question of what on earth a member of the royal family is doing out there in the first place?”

Mirror readers debated the justification for British troops in Afghanistan. One reader wrote, “No one should get killed over another’s beliefs.”

The legitimacy of war was debated on the Independent‘s not-so-vibrant discussion board as well.

The Times attracted 219 comments, mostly angry at the Drudge Report, praising Harry and also critical of the media attention to royals.

“[This is] a wake up call to newspaper editors that nobody cares…” said one. “I certainly didn’t notice that for 10 weeks I haven’t seen an article or a picture on Harry falling out of Boujis.”

Most people showed no tolerance for anti-embargo stands. Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow, who thanked God for Matt Drudge, came under fire. “Jon Snow in one absolutely idiotic, thoughtless, stupid statement has just lost C4News one viewer,” said a response.

A minority, however, supported Snow. “I think in fact he was making a valuable point missed elsewhere,” wrote one from this camp. “[I]n a democratic society accommodations made by the media (even if it is to protect a Prince) are the start of a very dangerous and slippery road to
censorship.”

More expressive were the comments about the Drudge Report. “This website should be closed down NOW!!” wrote a Sun reader. “One small minded, idiot of a journalist has now put the lives of UK forces in danger. If anyone dies out there now, he/she should be tried for murder.”

A marginal section felt the embargo breach was a PR stunt to arrest the decreasing public support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jameela Oberman is a writer at Interjunction.

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