The consequences of a bad joke
The hospital nurse who put through a prank-call request for information about the Duchess of Cambridge’s condition, from two radio DJs in Sydney pretending to members of the Royal Family, has killed herself at her home.
She had two children.
The prank-call, complete with information about the Duchess, was broadcast in Sydney, but made the news all over the world.
After news of the suicide broke, the Sydney station was besieged by complaints and advertisers began to pull out. Its Facebook page received 14,000 angry comments in a matter of hours.
The DJs have been taken off air indefinitely “by mutual consent” and are reported to be devastated at the “unforeseeable consequences” of what they did.
But were those consequences really unforeseeable? Perhaps not that their victim would kill herself, but certainly that she would be humiliated and embarrassed beyond measure, feel guilty for being so stupid, perhaps be unable to deal with it, and all of that on the world stage.
They had no idea who their victim would be, or how robust and able to withstand the onslaught he or she might be. But why do something like that to an innocent private person anyway, robust or not?
Chaos theory of sorts: the consequences of a seemingly insignificant prank call, thought up one morning over coffee in the staff room, are that two children will grow up without a mother, something serious that has far-reaching and varied consequences in itself, and these things really snowball, and a whole family has been shattered.
Of course, you can argue that those are the consequences of the nurse’s decision to kill herself, and not the consequences of the prank call, but that’s wrong. Suicide is not a rational decision. Sometimes even the most seemingly insignificant actions have dramatic consequences we could never have imagined.
36 Comments Comment
Some Maltese DJs have the habit of making phone pranks.I think the Broadcasting Authority should issue serious warnings to all stations. What a pity to have this tragic end to this particular `joke’.
I agree with Dunstan. To me these kind of jokes are “torture by radio”.
Does the presenter know the person he’s phoning?
Once, a presenter phoned a person at work to tell him that this was a call from the Income Tax Department and that he had more than a thousand pounds in arrears. That this worker could have suffered a heart attack crossed my mind at once – but it was only a joke. Some joke.
I agree with you. Sometimes they really go too far.They do not realise the harm they could well do.
I hate that programme Scherzi A Parte on Italian television, for exactly that reason. Their pranks go far beyond a joke at times.
A door is not a door, when it’s a jar.
A joke is not a joke when it goes too far.
I put the blame for this tragedy entirely on the hospital administration and the Met’s SO14 branch.
The hospital was nursing one of the most high-profile ladies in the world.
Any calls for or about her should have been forwarded to a specially trained royal protection officer and not to the ward sister.
Utterly disgraceful.
I put the blame on the stupid media which went royal-baby-tastic. Much ado about another privileged brat coming into the world.
My thoughts exactly, just another being subsidized by the British taxpayer.
“…subsidised by the British taxpayer”?
Get your facts right.
The Royal Family doesn’t cost the taxpayer.
It brings in more than it spends.
I don’t blame the DJ’s. Suicide is an irrational act. However, image I call Castille imitating Gonzi’s voice and demanding confidential information from the OPM.
Who would be so plain stupid to fall for that? But then again, we’re in Malta, so no surprises there.
Prank calls are made by most radio stations all over the world.
It is very unfortunate that this prank had such a terrible result. However we should not rush to condemn. The attached opinion is very lucid.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-tragedy-but-who-is-at-fault-20121208-2b29q.html
I have always hated phone pranks and candid camera shows.
It is just a matter of finding the victim in a sensitive state of mind and the consequences can be tragic, as probably happened in this case.
Hmmm … perhaps even this blog should tone down its attacks. Though not being pranks they do hurt sometimes.
[Daphne – X’ghandu x’jaqsam. What are you suggesting: let’s not make fun of Joseph Muscat’s hair in case he goes and kills himself?]
Int Obama jew Osama? X’kull wahda wkoll.
I’m not referring to Joseph or Franco or the rest. Being politicians they should accept being in the spotlight for better or worse.
It is incorrect to call the action of the two Australian DJs a prank or a joke. It was irresponsible abuse by a media couple, with a wide audience, against an innocent unkown person. The DJs did not care a fig whom they could hurt in their efforts to achieve popularity.
Now they are devastated, and I wonder whether this is because of the consequences they nave brought on themselves rather than on others.
But let us not forget, that such people prosper because there is a public demand for their cheap and abusive product, while advertisers fuel such programmes with their cash.
What is basically wrong is that our “brave new world” resents any moral standards. The right to insult has become a cornerstone of the twisted right of freedom of expression.
“Demand for cheap and abusive products” is another name for what is termed as “what the dumdora (read illiterate and uneducated mob) wants”
It’s easy, with hindsight, to condemn the two Aussies.
However, in all fairness, how were they to know that an idiotic gag would have pushed the nurse over the edge?
Should we ban candid camera (personally I find it unamusing, but hey, I appreciate that others like it)?
Should we refrain from April Fool, should we lose our sense of humour, just in case someone, somewhere, will take offence? Should correctness (Political, Social etc) become our North Star?
[Daphne – Shows that are built on pranks, like ‘candid camera’ have nothing at all to do with ‘a sense of humour’. They are displays of bullying, pure and simple. For that reason, I have always been uncomfortable with them, even as a child. They’re ghastly, and even ghastlier are the people who think they’re funny. You really must have no imagination at all not to be able to empathise with the victim and laugh at him instead.]
Death is a sad event, and our immediate thoughts should go the family, but what is sadder still is that this death is being used by the PC brigade.
There is a huge difference between ‘candid camera’ and this prank.
Any ‘victims’ of candid camera have to give their permission for the footage to be used.
Also, getting hold of certain intimate details about a person and blaring them out on radio is only appealing to those with a very sick sense of humour, to perverts in fact.
Sadly, the nurse who topped herself can’t have been very able to withstand pressure, I mean, one accidental booby shouldn’t drive one to the ultimate resolution, should it?
I presume she wouldn’t have been on the ward in the first place if she’d demonstrated a highly sensitive disposition in the first place.
It wasn’t her fault.
If you listen to the call, it’s clear that the switchboard put them through to the ward without filtering the call at all.
I am sorry but you did not get it.
There was no switchboard. It was early hours of the morning.
There is no receptionist at night.
A nurse got the call and passed it on to the ward.
It was the nurse who took the call and passed it on who committed suicide.
That is why I said earlier that it was an administrative failure that was to blame for the tragedy.
The nurse is not a native English speaker, therefore would not have been able to judge if the callers were genuine. An English native speaker would have smelt a rat as soon as this DJ opened his mouth.
Why not bring the two DJs to court to face the consequences.
That is the only way to stop such foolishness.
Qed tara hux, Baxxter, toqghod tghid dawk il-jokes fuq Franco – taf johoda go fih u jaghmel xi wahda.
Iktar se naghmel wahda jien. Franco m’ghandux ghalfejn jaghmel suwicidju. Ghandu hafna ghal xhiex jghix.
You need to come out of your shell,my dear Baxxter.
Camouflage attire doesn’t suit you.
What fucking shell, damn you?
Every employer of mine has marked me down as gobby and told me to shut it or else.
If you want me to come out of my fucking shell you should tell your mates to give me a fucking job, then maybe I can change out of my cammies into a blimming intellectual’s suit like yours.
That inane dj Martin Sapiano loves the sound of his own voice and putting on pseudo accents on his equally inane programme, playing silly pranks on unsuspecting listeners. One particular victim nearly had a heart attack when he threatened he would stop her taking a flight back unless she paid some imaginary fine. Such a prat.
Don’t agree, sorry.
Using the same reasoning, one does not do or say anything for fear that someone may, as a result of this action or statement, do something totally irrational and unreasonable, as this nurse did.
A parallel would be adjusting our lifestyles and restricting our freedoms so that certain cultures do not take offence, and perhaps take any action.
The DJs did no wrong, the only wrong I see here is that this is not acknowledged, and that the malady of society otherwise known as Political Correctness (hypocrisy in disguise) in any minor way attributes any fraction of a fault to them for the actions of the undoubtedly highly disturbed nurse.
I’m sure the call might have been the catalyst but I have the feeling the the hospital reaction to this unfortunate event must have given the last push.
The truth will never be known unfortunately.
Err, I don’t see how it’s the DJs’ fault.
1. The nurse who committed suicide didn’t divulge any information herself. She just passed on the call to the ward.
a) Couldn’t the other nurse, the one who divulged the details, have noticed the fake accent too?
b) The DJs’ scoop was the fact that they managed to get private information (from a second nurse), not the fact that they got through (by the first nurse).
In this case, the first nurse was never responsible for the blunder. I’d blame the DJs only if it was the second nurse who committed suicide. And even if so, it was poor planning on the part of the hospital administration and secret services. A total clusterfuck with procedure really. Typically British on the things that really matter.
2) The DJs just played a prank. It was aired on Australian radio. No one outside Australia would have known. Meanwhile, the UK tabloids blew the story out of proportion. Perhaps the lynch mob should go knocking on the tabloids’ editors’ doors instead, because they’re the ones who drew all this undue attention on the nurses’ actions.
They definitely over did it but there is no way a stable human being would commit suicide over something like this. She obviously must have had other issues, it incredibly unfair to blame them for her death.
I work in broadcasting. I have done for 20 years.
The presenters obviously wouldn’t have known the outcome of their hoax call, but you do NOT prank call a hospital. Ever.
It doesn’t matter if it’s royalty or somebody from the street.
What’s even more incredible is that the ‘prank’ call was aired after it was given the green light by lawyers.
2Day FM are accountable and the Programme Controller should have prevented the ‘prank’ going to air.
I’ll say it again: 2Day FM are accountable.
What rubbish. It was a hoax, a prank call, they happen all the time – whether it matches up to your sense of what constitutes humour is irrelevant (and I agree, it isn’t funny in the slightest… but that’s entirely subjective. To many, it is. It’s not bullying, that’s certain – the nurse was never a target, and being embarrassed doesn’t make you a target of bullying).
The DJs should not be held accountable for something which no one had any reasonable expectation could possibly happen. The measure of whether they did something wrong is this: would they have been stopped or disciplined for doing it if there were no consequences? No – everyone would have laughed or grimaced or shrugged, the royals would have feigned outrage and it would have ended there. The Aussies would have carried on with their clunky, coarse sense of humour, pranked more people and told stories about the pranks over the barbie.
There must have been other issues at play here, and the publicity around the prank call was the final straw. That makes it a tragic death, but it doesn’t mean somene has to be made responsible for it.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
It wasn’t a bad joke, just unfortunate – if the nurse hadn’t killed herself no one would be talking about it.