Across the pond

I have to correct the last blog, written immediately after I arrived back in Dorset yesterday. No fewer than five Guardian/Observer hacks have written trenchant stories making similar points those made in this blog and by Jon Snow of Channel Four News.

Simon Jenkins, former editor of the London Evening Standard, a regular contributor to The Times as well as The Guardian, has a crisp blog entitled, A Princely blunder.

Peter Wilby, a former editor of the New Stateman, says the press were suckered into the news blackout, in a piece headed, Harry’s game.

 Marina Hyde, one of the younger Guardian female journalists, This is war not therapy, launched her contribution in Saturday’s Guardian.

Catherine Bennett, The creation of a hero prince hides the true cost of war, uses her wit to prick the bubble of media coverage.

Finally, Peter Preston, the former editor of The Guardian, uses his column in today’s Observer to emphasise how the rules need to be updated to take account of the realities of the age in which we now live. The headline is: Slim chance for Harry’s secret war in web age. The final paragraph is:

But there is no wriggle-room here. And pulling out the prince once his cover is blown is a wriggle. The truly ‘commendable attitude’ is to face up to that and acknowledge it frankly, not pretend that top brass can finesse their way out of a fox hole they dug for themselves. If soldiering is Harry’s game, then new rules all round are unavoidable, including for editors who can’t control the flow any longer but just have to go with it