The news that Britain’s Prince Harry was fighting “Terry Taliban” in Afghanistan has triggered some debate about the media’s role in keeping it secret. There has been some criticism from the British public. The flipside, meanwhile, was ITN’s News at Ten, which featured a hilariously bitter report by Tom Bradby (”clever Mr Drudge … that’s just brilliant, then”).

Here’s the executive director of the UK’s Society of Editors explaining its decision to comply with the blackout, and here’s a similar piece from the BBC.

The BBC’s editor explains that “a news black-out is unusual, but not unique” and uses the example of a kidnapping, in which reporting is suspended during negotiations. That’s not a great example, given that he could have used the fact that whenever George W Bush or Tony Blair/Gordon Brown or a handful of their ministers have visited either Afghanistan or Iraq, despite the obvious news value in flagging such an event it is only reported afterwards.

As it happens, blackouts, of a sort, are commonplace in the media. Embargoes are rampant. There are embargoes preventing the early review of books sent by publishers, embargoes on movie interviews and embargoes on press releases. (The Booker Prize, for instance, is announced to journalists before writers, so that they can hit their deadlines.) So, this is an industry well used to keeping secrets, and colluding with people far less important than royalty, and for reasons far less important than the life of a soldier.