On the news tonight, journalism's worst-kept secret was out in the open: Prince Harry is in Afghanistan. The government had the good grace to acknowledge the fact that when the British media said it wouldn't report that we had a member of the royal family on the front-line, it kept its word.
Instead, it fell to the normally very impressive Drudge Report to break the blackout, and probably put some lives at risk as a result. As it is, Drudge may well be claiming the big news, but it appears to have broken on some little-known Aussie website last month. Still, plenty of journalists have fallen into the trap of claiming an exclusive when in fact it's not - doesn't stop them looking rather daft when it gets pointed out their exclusive is anything but though.
So perhaps not surprisingly, the British media has gone into meltdown. It is, after all, a huge story, and quite unusually, one the media here can claim the moral highground on. Whether it damages the reputation of the media - the liberal loons who infest the textlines at Five Live have been busy getting RSI with finger and thumb to claim it shows the Press is not the free-thinking beast it should be - remains to be seen.
In the main interview Harry appears to have pre-recorded in Afghanistan, which was meant to air when he was safely back home, he says that the only people who really understand what it's like to be fighting in Afghanistan are those soliders who have experienced it.
Which, on the face of it, is rather like stating the obvious. However, those of us who haven't fought in Afghanistan have a lot to thank Ross Kemp for. Yes, I'm serious. I'm talking about Grant Mitchell, or rather the actor behind him. His recently ended series Ross Kemp in Afghanistan did a lot to help show what army life is really like, and what those in Afghanistan go through.
I was among those who had given Ross Kemp on Gangs, his previous show, a wide berth, assuming that it was just cashing in on the hard-man reputation gained through his portrayal of Grant Mitchell. Bad call. If ...Gangs is half as good as ...Afghanistan, then it must be worth watching.
Rarely is a documentary such compulsive viewing that it knocks everything else against it out of the water, especially at 9pm on a Monday. But by getting to know members of one regiment before the flew out, then flying out with them, and living with them, Kemp built up a level of trust with the soliders which meant he got a lot more out of them. He was with them when colleagues died in a so-called 'blue on blue' (perhaps better described as America's Kill Now, Think Later attitude) but he didn't see to sensationalise. In fact, during the pre-show interviews, he actively sought to talk around the issue, to his credit.
What he did do very well was let them tell their stories, get things off their chest. This wasn't about Ross Kemp patrolling a front-line, it was about Ross Kemp doing what I don't think I've seen a journalist do for a long time: actually live with soliders, without the need to drum up a story instantly, and get to know them. The result is raw, it's emotional, but it paints a picture rarely seen of life in the army.
Kemp himself gets rather emotional when he greets the regiment on their return from duty. He should have cut a rather odd figure, alone among the families desperate to meet their returning heroes. But he seemed to fit right in. The cameras with Kemp weren't intruders, they were like friends. He didn't charge up to the soliders as they got off the buses, he waited until they'd met their families and then spoke to them. His questions weren't designed to give guaranteed answers, but were more a friend talking to a friend.
His stall for the programme wasn't to moralise on whether the war was right or wrong, but to show how it effects soliders and their families. Thanks to Sky's quick-let's-repeat-it, I've no doubt it will on again before the month is out. Seek it out, watch it. Your view of the war in Afghanistan will change. And for those lefties hailing Drudge Report for breaking an embargo, let's hope you attitude towards Drudge changes too.
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