How Royal Stories Happen - Harry and the Polo Field of Death

Students of Royal journalism, study well the tale of Bash Kazi, the American businessman who was briefly knocked unconscious during Prince Harry’s charity polo match in Brazil last month. It is turning into one of those stories with a life of its own.

The first report of Mr Kazi’s accident was in the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column, which carried an interview with Mr Kazi, a 41-year-old defense contractor, in which he spoke about how Prince Harry leapt off his horse and administered first aid when he was thrown from his horse.

“I remember waking up with these piercing blue eyes looking at me,” he told the Post. The paper added, “With a prince in the game, there was more fuss over Kazi’s injury than he would have liked. An ambulance came out, although Kazi was able to walk off the field on his own. He even came back later to finish the match,” before concluding with a quote from Mr Kazi, “I think I had a minor concussion, but I’ve since had a CT scan and everything is clear.”

By the time a variety of other papers started writing about the incident this week, some enterprising reporters had taken to calling up medical experts, who were happy to testify that, ‘Harry’s prompt action’ in rolling his opponent over onto his side, ‘could have saved his life.’

Well, possibly. But even the most dramatic of tabloid editors would be hard pushed to compete with the headline on the National Turk this morning, ‘Prince Harry saves Businessman from Certain Death.’

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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