http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/aug/22/ministry-of-defence-newspapers
guardian.co.uk
Posted by Roy Greenslade Monday 22 August 2011 17.56 BST guardian.co.uk
Does the DA notice system inhibit press freedom?
Tomorrow morning BBC Radio 4 airs D for discretion: can the modern media keep a secret? It looks closely at that most arcane of institutions, the body that issues defence advisory notices (previously known as the D-notice committee).
Twice a year, over tea and biscuits at the ministry of defence, media executives meet civil servants to talk about what should be kept secret in the military, intelligence and counter-terrorism worlds.
This committee has been in existence for almost a century and, in its earliest days, its remit was wide and its existence was hardly known.
Nowadays, it even has a website - here - and the system is supposed to be used only in the most serious cases when national security is at stake.
For example, broadcasters were asked not to show live pictures of military aircraft leaving UK bases for Libya, lest it give Gaddafi's forces any clues about targets.
Though the system is supposed to be voluntary, it's very rare for any of the mainstream media organisations to ignore the committee's requests.
