ABSTRACT
The Falklands campaign made sense as an updated story of the Boys’ Own kind. The story of the cook’s death and the response in the family was silenced. Ironically, the quest for the release of our ‘kith and kin’ from the enemy and the protection of hearth and home in the dependency demanded the break up of family life for the members of the Force. In spite of the unprecedented limitations imposed on the media by censorship, broadcasters and press were able still to bridge the gap between onset and finish because the conflict was brief. The absence of factual evidence of conspiracy to mislead, or even of news management, allowed the Committee to admit to the lesser fault, which it clearly felt was no fault at all, of 'media handling', massaging the news to secure not truth but victory. For operational reasons the military commanders needed secrecy, and this suited the two governments, both of which ‘handled’ the media.
