The Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee is a British advisory body established in 2015 which oversees a voluntary code which operates between the government departments which have responsibility for national security and the media.
History
Preceding organisations:
*Admiralty, War Office and Press Committee, 1912–1919. An Assistant Secretary of the War Office and Mr. Robbins, the representative of the
Press Association
PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and re ...
, were joint Secretaries. Letters, or telegrams, were sent to editors when agreed. They came to be known as "Parkers" after Mr. Parke who was then the representative of the
Newspaper Proprietors' Association The News Media Association is a trade body which styles itself as "the voice of national, regional and local news media organisations in the UK". It was created in 2014 by a merger between the Newspaper Society and the Newspaper Publishers' Associat ...
on the Committee. This evolved into the
D-Notice
In the United Kingdom, a DSMA-Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security. DSMA-Notices were formerly called a ...
system.
*Admiralty, War Office, Air Ministry and Press Committee, 1919–1939.
*Admiralty, War Office, Air Ministry and Press Committee, 1945–1967. Admiral George Thompson, who had been the Chief Press Censor during the war, became the Secretary of the committee in 1945.
* Services, Press and Broadcasting Committee c.1967–1993. Vice Admiral Sir
Norman Denning
Vice-Admiral Sir Norman Egbert Denning, (19 November 1904 – 27 December 1979) was a Royal Naval and Intelligence Officer at the Admiralty and Defence Intelligence Staff who served as Director of Naval Planning from 1945 to 1956, Director of ...
was appointed Secretary in 1967.
*Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee, 1993–2015.
The records of the committees are held in the
British National Archives
The National Archives (TNA, cy, Yr Archifau Cenedlaethol) is a non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Its parent department is the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sp ...
.
The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee issued
DA-Notice
In the United Kingdom, a DSMA-Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security. DSMA-Notices were formerly called a ...
s from 1993 to 2015. The secretary was a former
two-star military officer employed from a
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
budget and is housed by them (although technically independent) and the committee is made up of senior civil servants and representatives of national media organisations.
Membership
The committee consisted of five government representatives and 16 media representatives.
The five government positions on the committee were all
ex officio
An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by right ...
- the chairman being the current
Permanent Under Secretary
A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil s ...
of the Ministry of Defence. The 2nd
Permanent Under Secretary
A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil s ...
of the Ministry of Defence, the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
Permanent Secretary
A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day ...
, the Permanent Under Secretary of the
Home Office and the Deputy Under Secretary from the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...
were the other officers. The Vice Chairman was chosen by the press members from among their number.
The media representatives were nominated by the following organisations:
*
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
On 25 November 2010, the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee sent
of a "huge cache" of United States (US) diplomatic cables.
presented this as part of "a harm minimisation strategy the US government has embarked on
*Nicholas Wilkinson: Secrecy and the Media, The Official History of the United Kingdom's D-Notice System, Routledge, Chapman &Hall, London, 2009
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