By DPA
Sydney : Australian women’s magazine New Idea apologized Monday for publishing a report revealing British royal Prince Harry’s frontline deployment in Afghanistan.
New Idea said it was not “alert to the possible ramifications” of running the report about Harry’s secret tour of duty, which appeared in the magazine and on its website in January.
Few noticed the initial report, but a scandal erupted after US website the Drudge Report picked up the story and broadcast it widely, breaching an agreed global media blackout.
“We did not knowingly breach any embargo and were not party to any agreement for a media blackout on the story,” the monthly said in its latest issue. “We regret this serious lapse of judgement.”
The British defence establishment tried to keep Prince Harry’s Afghanistan tour of duty secret under a news blackout agreed by the British media to prevent details reaching insurgents and endangering the prince and his comrades.
The 23-year-old, third in the line to the British throne, was forced to cut his three-month tour of duty short and returned to Britain on March 1 after serving 10 weeks in the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand.
New Idea is a celebrity and lifestyle magazine with a monthly circulation of about 400,000 copies.