Why editors keep news out
Reviewed by Peter Preston Posted Wed, Sep 17 2008
Sometimes the question for editors isn’t the news you put into print, but the news you keep out. Take one recent migraine of an example: The second in line to the British throne is a serving army officer, and he wants to be out in the field with his men. But the field in question is an Afghan one, and so hugely dangerous. He would be a natural target if the Taliban knew he was there, and he would put the soldiers he leads at risk, too. So sending him to Kandahar has to remain a secret — and the media have to keep that secret. Buckingham Palace and the British Ministry of Defense both make a proposition: Keep quiet, and we’ll give you some exclusive pictures and stories about Prince Harry at war once he’s back in the U.K. Now, what should editors do?
Well, of course, the world knows pretty clearly what they did do in a situation changed from hypothetical to practical in a trice. They did the deal. They kept Lt. Harold Windsor firmly under wraps whilst, for six long weeks, he saw action near the frontline. And they were pretty aggrieved when the news of this bargain leaked out — via Matt Drudge on the Internet — and even more aggrieved to find other journalists, those kept out of the loop, giving them a hard time. Newspapers, they were told firmly by these critics, are not in business to censor information the royal family does not like. Least of all are they in business to portray the Afghan War in a roseate blaze of propaganda. Wrong request; wrong decision.
And the difficulty, of course, is that both sides have good arguments to deploy. Take the palace — and editors — first. Here is a young man who will probably never be king. He wants a career for himself and has joined the Army on a proper, full-time basis (unlike his elder brother, who is merely sampling military life like a table full of tapas). But if Harry cannot serve in Iraq or Afghanistan because he and those around him might get killed, what use is such a career? It is a charade, a passing show, and the prince is frustrated and disillusioned. He is ready to resign his commission. His family and defense ministers want to find an answer.
Consult precedent, and the ploy they come up with fits perfectly. While the two young princes were in full-time education, the British press agreed to leave them alone: no photographers in the bushes, no undercover reporters in the bar. They deserved a chance at a normal life, it was argued, and newspapers and TV stations gave them one in return for occasional interviews and picture sessions. Now the same terms and conditions apply to wartime service — and editors feel happy enough about that. After all, the newspaper-buying public does not approve of paparazzi in the bushes, so the press gains some esteem along with its voluntary restraint. Where’s the harm in that?
But here come those critics, denouncing any deal that excludes Joe Public and seems to glorify a horribly protracted, costly war. Look, they cry, you have been played for suckers. And, worse, you have lost trust because your readers and viewers know now that tea and cakes at the palace can make you swallow your principles, that a few photo-opportunities can see a free press roll on its back and kick its legs in the air.
Who is right? Who is wrong? I doubt, in a British context, that we’ll ever have proof one way or the other — there will be no repeat of these arrangements in any case. Simply, the prince is known around the world, and around the Internet. He cannot stay incognito for long. Someone will spot him and call Matt Drudge (or any other blogger obeying no ministry orders). What cannot work in practice, in short, is not worth agreeing to in principle.
But where, beyond that, are lines to be drawn? Ideally, a truly free press should draw no lines. If the news is out there, it ought to be up there in lights. Playing footsie with the royals or Ten Downing Street — over the abdication crisis of long ago, for instance — is no advertisement for independent journalism. Cozy relationships and silences should not feature in any agenda. The last thing the press should really want is to be praised as “responsible” by those it exists to monitor.
Yet it is here, precisely, where the question turns back on ourselves and asks insistently: Whose side are you on? Some of the time, handing ourselves awards at pompous ceremonies and proclaiming how honorable we are, the answer is clear enough: We want respectability and respect; we want to be the next president of the Great Rotary Club for rotating editors.
But we are not in our jobs — we are not journalists -— for self-preening purposes. We are servants of our readers and we owe them the facts (which is also, most of the time, the truth). That won’t make us universally popular. Often, it will heap opprobrium on our desks. Nevertheless, those readers deserve the first word — and the last.
I am happy I did not have to decide about Prince Harry — and I don’t deride those who decided to keep mum. They acted in what they thought was the press’s best interests, as well as the prince’s. It was a fiendishly hard call. But these things can only be done one step and one call at a time, and if they can’t be explained as we go, then uneasiness grows. The public knew we were keeping cameramen out of the princes’ school bushes, because we told them so. But they were kept in the dark about Kandahar — and somehow there’s too much sheepish blinking as the light comes on.
Peter Preston
Global Journalist columnist Peter Preston is editorial director of the Guardian Media Group and was the chairman of IPI from 1995 to 1997.