taks revives what I feel is an important point from my original post. T owhat extent should the press be under control during national crises such as wartime?
Leaving aside the general impact of the media on warfare in a democratic country, there have been specific incidents where even public service broadcasters like the BBC have aired reports indicating operational intent. These reports have lead to enemy speculative artilllery fire. On most major occasions the only thing preventing disaster has been that the enemy can't believe we would be so stupid as to release such information. They assume it is disinformation.
Examples of this would be the asssault on Goose Green in the Falklands, or the Iranian embassy seige where reporters broadcast live the fact that hostage rescue units were going in. In the case of the latter, and given that the terrorists were known to have TVs it was quite staggering that no deaths resulted.
As i say we have been trememndously lucky in the past, with these keys instances. But the fact is that as awareness spreads of our tendency more people will take advantage of it.
The counter-argument is naturally that the people have a right to know. But I ask on what timescale have they a right to know? The people cannot do anything about operations 8,000 miles away, or even in London that day or even that week.