Mod Note: See Post #71 Nurse in Kate radio prank takes her own life

Btr · 07-12-2012 5:00pm #1

Earlier this week, in the name of being funny, Australian radio show host made a prank call to the hospital where Kate Middleton was. A nurse put them through and now she has taken her own life following reaction to the story. RIP and let's hope it puts an end to infantile prank calls on all radio stations . A tragic day for the nurse's friends and family and a black day for broadcasting

Technocentral · 07-12-2012 5:24pm

Terrible story but I'd say its more a black day for that particular type of tabloid broadcasting than for broadcasting in general, I mostly listen to responsible stations like Radio 4 , Rte 1 and NPR with BBC6 for music I never here any of that bull****.

DipStick McSwindler · 07-12-2012 5:25pm

This post has been deleted.

Myrddin · 07-12-2012 5:29pm

Is this the nurse who answered the initial call, or the one that gave out the info? Shocking to hear she took her own life!

Fresh Pots · 07-12-2012 5:31pm

Awful sad. R.I.P.

Tayla · 07-12-2012 5:34pm

How does anyone know her reasons for doing what she did? That's pure speculation and considering the prank call was an intrusion of someones privacy it is absolutely disgusting that the news outlets think it is ok to report on this womans death in such an exploitative way.

MrJoeSoap · 07-12-2012 5:44pm

EnterNow wrote: »

Is this the nurse who answered the initial call, or the one that gave out the info? Shocking to hear she took her own life!

Has been reported as both, but does now look like it is the lady who passed the initial call through.

Technocentral · 07-12-2012 5:46pm

IrishFeeney92 wrote: »

Cant see why the DJs are getting the blame, they are being abused on twitter and have had to close their accounts. People just looking for somebody to blame I suppose

What kind of decent person thinks ringing hospitals like this is a appropriate source of humour? I despise the Royalty but everyone deserves some dignity and privacy. They and all responsible for their show should be fired if not lynched.

MrJoeSoap · 07-12-2012 5:54pm

IrishFeeney92 wrote: »

Cant see why the DJs are getting the blame, they are being abused on twitter and have had to close their accounts. People just looking for somebody to blame I suppose

I can't see how anybody but the DJ's would be to blame. A woman is going about her job, one that she has no doubt worked incredibly hard to get, and all of a sudden her brief mistake (if you would call it that) is at the centre of a worldwide shitstorm.

They made the call, trying to extract some private medical information for some bizarre reason, and all of a sudden her job is on the line and her mental state is all over the place.

Gutter journalism at it's absolute worst.

Technocentral · 07-12-2012 5:58pm

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

I can't see how anybody but the DJ's would be to blame. A woman is going about her job, one that she has no doubt worked incredibly hard to get, and all of a sudden her brief mistake (if you would call it that) is at the centre of a worldwide shitstorm.

They made the call, trying to extract some private medical information for some bizarre reason, and all of a sudden her job is on the line and her mental state is all over the place.

Gutter journalism at it's absolute worst.

I was shocked when I first heard the initial story about them ringing a hospital, maybe ringing Claridges or a shop etc pretending to be Royalty has some slightly humorous overtones but getting your kicks from ringing hospitals? What if she had being in with a miscarriage and even not its still scumbag behavior.

GSF · 07-12-2012 6:05pm

I thought stations had to get consent forms from people before putting them on air, hence why these prank calls are usually pre-recorded days in advance? Pretty sure that would be the case for Irish radio stations. Does it fly out the window if they are pranking someone famous (not that the nurse was)?

Myrddin · 07-12-2012 6:06pm

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

Has been reported as both, but does now look like it is the lady who passed the initial call through.

Dreadful sad, thoughts with her family & friends

MrJoeSoap · 07-12-2012 6:08pm

GSF wrote: »

I thought stations had to get consent forms from people before putting them on air, hence why these prank calls are usually pre-recorded days in advance? Pretty sure that would be the case for Irish radio stations. Does it fly out the window if they are pranking someone famous (not that the nurse was)?

Apparently, the radio industry's code of practice has a privacy clause, which states:

"In the preparation and presentation of current affairs programs a licensee must ensure it does not use material relating to a person's personal or private affairs, or which invades an individual's privacy, unless there is a public interest in broadcasting such information."

Was there a public interest in broadcasting this? Highly debatable.

GSF · 07-12-2012 6:20pm

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

Apparently, the radio industry's code of practice has a privacy clause, which states:

"In the preparation and presentation of current affairs programs a licensee must ensure it does not use material relating to a person's personal or private affairs, or which invades an individual's privacy, unless there is a public interest in broadcasting such information."

Was there a public interest in broadcasting this? Highly debatable.

This surely would have been deemed an entertainment segment - does it mean that people can be put on air without their consent if there is an entertainment value to the material?

msg11 · 07-12-2012 6:53pm

No doubt the production team and on air staff of that show that broadcast the 'humor' have a lot to answer for here. Why you would want to broadcast information on anybody that's in hospital in a what could be a serious situation as humor.

I can't really understand why the nurse killed herself, maybe there's more to this than just the 'prank' call, seems seriously over the top.

Regardless of what I think , my thoughts are with her loves ones and that radio station has a lot to answer for in relation to the content it broadcasted as 'humor'

heybaby · 07-12-2012 7:51pm

An awful and tragic situation, no doubt. The dj's in question according to 2DayFM's facebook page have been taken off air and rightly so, what happens in the long run is difficult to say, personally I'd say they'll be shipped out of 2Dayfm purely because of the stigma now associated with them, they can hardly continue to host their 'zaney', 'irreverent' show in the knowledge that their prank contributed however directly or indirectly to someones death. There will be massive pressure from government sources both in the UK and Australia on the station to be seen to do the decent thing, because a member of the royal family is involved. Personally I think 'prank' phone calls are a rubbish jaded format , they were being done decades ago, time for some fresh ideas that dont involve ritual humiliation particularly without the subjects consent. No one can know the state of mind of the poor nurse in question, needless to say may she rest in peace.

GSF · 07-12-2012 9:29pm

TodayFM might be regretting copying that name tonight perhaps?

gavindowd · 07-12-2012 9:48pm

GSF wrote: »

TodayFM might be regretting copying that name tonight perhaps?

I dont think that they'll be allowed say the name of the station in the media

NIMAN · 07-12-2012 9:52pm

How many people who are outraged tonight by these 2 DJs have laughed themselves at prank calls in the past?

And does this mean we have seen the end of the prank call?

Althoght this is a very sad story, I think it would be harsh for someone to be hounded because of a prank. We have all played pranks on people, did they know that this woman would have taken her own life? It seems a very extreme thing to do, perhaps she was already suffering under other problems and this was just a tipping point.

It will be sad if comedians have to stop being funny in case people get offended and kill themselves.

MrJoeSoap · 07-12-2012 10:03pm

NIMAN wrote: »

How many people who are outraged tonight by these 2 DJs have laughed themselves at prank calls in the past?

And does this mean we have seen the end of the prank call?

Althoght this is a very sad story, I think it would be harsh for someone to be hounded because of a prank. We have all played pranks on people, did they know that this woman would have taken her own life? It seems a very extreme thing to do, perhaps she was already suffering under other problems and this was just a tipping point.

It will be sad if comedians have to stop being funny in case people get offended and kill themselves.

As I said in the AH thread, a good prank is one that has all parties laughing at the end of it. There's no way that these two DJ's could ever have thought the staff (whose jobs would be at risk if/when the prank worked) would have found it funny.

NIMAN · 07-12-2012 10:23pm

But do you not think that this false rage that the whole world drums up in cases like this are only the Facebook and Twitter brigade who gets annoyed about anything and can themselves ruin people?

The venom out there now for these DJs is shocking. What if they kill themselves next? Who do we attack then?

L1011 · 07-12-2012 10:36pm

Hopefully, if anything good comes of this, it stops other DJs doing the generally utterly crap "funny prank calls" that a number of the poorer ones try doing.

zom · 08-12-2012 1:11am

GSF wrote: »

This surely would have been deemed an entertainment segment - does it mean that people can be put on air without their consent if there is an entertainment value to the material?

Can we call it "public interest" ?? Oh Good, how far from normality we are! Where we lost all of our common sense??

smurfs5 · 08-12-2012 1:12am

A truly tragic and deeply sad story. Such a waste of a life. Thoughts go out to her friends and family. I cannot understand how she became so unstable in the last few days that she took her own life. Shocking.

A lot of people seem to be taking this as an opportunity to ensure prank calls are never made again. This is an example of when they are taken too far. Obviously, Mel Greig and Michael Christian didn't think it would come to this and IMO, they are being given undue criticism for the nurse's decision to commit suicide. At first, I saw the funny side of it but they know now that they should never have made that call. Prank calls can be funny when done well (see Scott Mills) but they can be awful radio at the other end of the scale. I didn't think Mel and MC's call was particularly bad and there was no malice in their call but I don't know what they were trying to achieve. I cannot believe it has come to this. It would have been forgotten about by Monday. May the nurse rest in peace.

Cookie Policy · 08-12-2012 1:59pm

All the media news bulletins I've heard haven't mentioned the name of the station - just in case it was interpreted the wrong way. Online media have given the name of 2DayFM. Nevertheless this is very tragic, this may hush down Dave O'Connor on iRadio. RIP

P. Breathnach · 08-12-2012 2:53pm

I don't think it is appropriate for us to discuss the mental state of somebody who seems to have taken her own life.

Let's look at the issue of the prank call. An effort was made to compromise the privacy of a well-known woman who was in hospital. This involved seeking to get a medical professional to breach her obligation to maintain patient confidentiality. To what end? An overriding public interest? No: a cheap laugh.

Marian Finucane played an excerpt from a subsequent broadcast involving the two broadcasters involved where it was evident that they saw nothing wrong in what they did.

The boundaries of what is considered acceptable broadcasting need to be more clearly delineated.

goose2005 · 08-12-2012 7:40pm

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I don't think it is appropriate for us to discuss the mental state of somebody who seems to have taken her own life.

Let's look at the issue of the prank call. An effort was made to compromise the privacy of a well-known woman who was in hospital. This involved seeking to get a medical professional to breach her obligation to maintain patient confidentiality. To what end? An overriding public interest? No: a cheap laugh.

Marian Finucane played an excerpt from a subsequent broadcast involving the two broadcasters involved where it was evident that they saw nothing wrong in what they did.

The boundaries of what is considered acceptable broadcasting need to be more clearly delineated.

It was a fairly innocent prank, they didn't even try very hard to be convincing and I doubt they expected to get through

GSF · 08-12-2012 8:02pm

goose2005 wrote: »

It was a fairly innocent prank, they didn't even try very hard to be convincing and I doubt they expected to get through

It's not really a nurse's job at 5.30am to be screening for crank callers is it? Probably had 101 better things to be doing. Besides as a non native English speaker she may not exactly have been acute to the quality of the accent, even if she hadn't been working a long night shift previously. From the comments of her friends she was a shy and introverted person and coming from a non English background may have accentuated this. I'm sure the radio station can show that they considered all these factors in a risk assessment before broadcasting?

Remember it is the radio station that has the duty of care to those it involves in its programming. It is nobody else's responsibility.

RainyDay · 08-12-2012 9:02pm

GSF wrote: »

It's not really a nurse's job at 5.30am to be screening for crank callers is it? Probably had 101 better things to be doing. Besides as a non native English speaker she may not exactly have been acute to the quality of the accent, even if she hadn't been working a long night shift previously. From the comments of her friends she was a shy and introverted person and coming from a non English background may have accentuated this. I'm sure the radio station can show that they considered all these factors in a risk assessment before broadcasting?

Remember it is the radio station that has the duty of care to those it involves in its programming. It is nobody else's responsibility.

The hospital most certainly had a responsibility to prepare its staff. It is was completely foreseeable that they would have callers probing for information. There should have been a clear protocol for how to handle any such calls, regardless of who claimed to be on the other end of the line. If the hospital didn't train their staff, they could be badly exposed.

Tombo2001 · 08-12-2012 9:10pm

CEO of the radio station saying the djs "didnt do anything illegal".....and "nobody could have foreseen the consequences" of their actions....

What a ponce, adding insult to injury.

indough · 08-12-2012 9:20pm

couldn't foresee the suicide of course, but they knew it could likely mean curtains for someone's career. in return they should lose their own, thats only fair. but after that statement i hope the entire station goes under tbh

Mod Note: See Post #71 Nurse in Kate radio prank takes her own life

Comments