Everyone’s blamed Matt Drudge for breaking the Prince Harry Taliban fighter story. But, in reality, it was an Australian celebrity gossip magazine, New Idea, that really broke the media blackout. Drudge was just reporting their slip-up.
As expected, New Idea is getting lots of heat for breaking the Harry news. The publishers of the mag said it regrets what happened and that its editors were not aware an embargo existed.
Yeah, right!
New Idea is taking quite the beating in the press because it seems like no one in their editorial group checked the story properly. If they had done so, they would have seen that nothing had been printed about the soldier prince’s Afghanistan stint. And, that would have prompted most other mags to fact check the story with the Ministry of Defense.
A senior level insider claims, “No one at the magazine appreciated the implications of what they were doing, obviously. They didn’t realise that the story could be dangerous to Harry.”
Duh?! Hello!
Doesn’t take a genius to figure that royalty would have been a ‘prize’ for the Taliban.
There has been speculation about who will pay the price for the major error. Seems like nobody at this point!
The mag’s Editor-in-chief, Robyn Foyster, has tried to distance herself from the story by saying she was on vaca when it was published. And, interesting enough, she is moving to rival mag Australian Women’s Weekly.
Mirella Cestaro, one of the two editorial executives who were in charge, has been promoted to editor-in-chief (supposedly the promo was in the works before the debacle). The other, Michelle Endacott, remains as editor.
Where’s the sorry????
[Image via WENN.]