3 notes

This tragedy could hopefully have been avoided if our culture were different. The Australian radio network has made a fantastic first step in canceling the 2DayFM show, banning all shows from making future prank calls, and demanding a review of policies. It’s a good start. Of course, these Australian DJs had no way of knowing they would be put through to Kate Middleton’s actual nurse and told confidential medical information. I believe them when they said they assumed they’d get hung up on (as I’m certain they often are). And the DJs certainly had no way of knowing that their actions, reckless as they were, might trigger a guilt-ridden, emotionally delicate bystander to kill herself. That avoidable tragedy is not their direct fault and as good as it may feel to excoriate these DJs, it does not help people who are at risk for suicide to heap the blame entirely upon them. Anyway, I agree to an extent that when Michael Christian and Mel Greig prank-called the duchess’s hospital, they were just “doing their jobs” — because their job is to do something repulsive. Like it or not, radio DJs (and bloggers and actors, etc.) are in the entertainment business. They were trying to get laughs, but not trying cause an internationally-watched tragedy. We as listeners and consumers of media need to tell other DJs and prankers we don’t want this to be part of their jobs anymore. We need to say to other radio stations, “Look, prank calls make their victims feel terrible and cross a boundary of trust. This is wrong. Find something else to do, please?