The British media have won universal praise for maintaining the news blackout over Prince Harry’s combat role in Afghanistan. News of Harry’s deployment was broken by an American website. As a result, he is being brought back to Britain.

Jon Williams, the BBC’s world news editor, explains the background to the news blackout on the BBC Editor’s blog. Williams talks about the royal family gave the media to Prince Harry in the run up to his deployment, including filming in Afghanistan during the blackout. The agreement seems to worked well for Harry and the media. As Williams says, the surprise is that the news took 10 weeks to leak.

Having said all that, it’s difficult to justify the seven full pages The Times devoted to the story today.