Naked Truth

It was bound to happen that sooner or later the Sun would, under some self righteous cloak of press freedom, publish the pictures of Prince Harry naked. This blog does not usually venture into the area of privacy and press freedom, but it does tend to weigh into controversy, which is what this has now become.

Whatever everybody is writing and saying, the facts of the matter are these. Every day millions of pictures are being taken of people, naked and in every other form of compromising, indelicate and vulgar situation it is possible to think of and thousands of these pictures appear in social media and You Tube, the latter in the form of shaky videos. Almost all are taken on phones, mostly by friends, many of whom if not drunk have been drinking.  As those involved sober up and lose sight of the joke, these pictures and videos usually get taken down. That this happens is neither an assault on privacy, nor an issue of press freedom, nor an infringement of human rights. It is an inevitable consequence of high spirits and the ability to record, film, transmit and upload on the spur of the moment, in a split second from the palm of almost every hand sub middle age.

These are essentially private communications which go public as a consequence of the revolution in information and communications technology. To try and inhibit them is as futile as it was once to make a man walk in front of the first motor cars carrying a red flag to warn others of the approach of the alien, spluttering conveyance beyond general comprehension.

What makes this set of photographs special is that the naked person is a prince, not a minor member of a defunct royal house, but the third senior prince from the best known and most successful reigning royal house in the world, whose personal media profile is golden. He is a soldier prince, a bachelor and under thirty years old. That he gets naked at a drinks party with friends in a hotel room  in Las Vegas, comes as a surprise only to fools. Somebody takes a picture. It goes viral. Anyone interested can find it everywhere.

British newspapers decide to accede to a request from St. James’s Palace to show discretion. They do, some with a pious explanation. Actually it is old news anyway and nobody is going to buy a paper simply to get a picture which they can view elsewhere for free. Moreover, most newspapers are beginning to learn that they cannot compete with the Internet with its blogs and networks on even terms. They have to offer something different, which is interesting in a different way, if people are going to go on buying them long term, once tablets become universal.

Then the Sun breaks ranks and publishes, shrieking press freedom as it does so. Only one thing in the controversial decision is clear. It tells the world a good deal more about the Sun, than the nudity of a prince tells the world about a young man universally admired. And admired still.