Leveson restraint crumbles as Sun prints prince photos

The restraint on the news media imposed by inquiries related to the phone-hacking scandal crumbled on Friday as The Sun became the first British tabloid to publish photos of Prince Harry cavorting naked with friends in Las Vegas.

The photos, available online for some days, were printed by the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Sun within hours of his daughter, Elisabeth Murdoch, rejecting unbridled profit-making values of her father and brother James Murdoch in a speech at Edinburgh.

The Sun cloaked the decision to publish the pictures as a matter of freedom of speech, and one that sought to question the wisdom of not making available in print what was freely available on the Internet.

Until now, the Leveson Inquiry and other inquiries set up in the wake of phone-hacking at Murdoch’s News of the World had led to some restraint in the “publish and be damned” culture, particularly in tabloid newsrooms.