Wow. That is so ridiculous, I give up. Have fun in your lunatic asylum.
Really? I thought the bit about women being less likely to murder you in retaliation was the real low point of the conversation.
At this point I can’t tell if this is an Australian mindset vs US mindset thing, or if we are indeed just debating with actual certified lunatics. There is a vast gulf between what I hear in that audio clip - a couple of halfwits playing a prank and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams despite an absolute absence of any credibility, or even any attempt at credibility - and what’s being described here - a couple of malicious anti-nurse crusaders hellbent on getting someone fired and secretly cherishing the hope of causing someone’s death in their murderous hearts, safe in the knowledge that a woman won’t enact bloody revenge against them. I wasn’t mad at the DJs before, but I am now - that’s sexist!
Not at all the same thing; opening a door isn’t an act of malice, designed to cause harm. A prank is. What they did was closer to someone who flicks cigarette butts into a neighbor’s yard to irritate him, except this time the lawn was dry, it caught fire and burned down the house & killed the neighbor.
A phone call is not an act of malice either. Listen to it, it is not a malicious prank, it’s a phone call using a couple of silly voices. It is the equivalent of approaching the Hospital Reception Desk while wearing a crown and big fake ears.
Malice is rolling the dice on someone else’s career to further you’re own. They were attempting to subvert security to obtain private medical information. A crime in their own country, I believe.
They then turned it into a sideshow of promotion, still airing it hours after the suicide was known.
They could not have known it would end this way, it’s true. But it was easily foreseeable that a professional could be feeling some repercussions. Again no way to know if those repercussions would be large or small, career ending or mentally unsettling. But they still chose to roll those dice.
Of course they couldn’t know if this woman was mentally fragile. But that’s the thing about rolling dice with other people’s lives.
If you have the stones to roll those dice with other people’s fates, for shits and giggles and ruthless selfpromotion, then you should nut up and quit trying to shirk the blame onto the British Press. It might not have made the international press had not the dj’s been playing it non stop.
Actions have consequences, fact of life. They rolled the dice, were willing to risk it, thinking it couldn’t reach back to them, but it has. That’s the way life works, I’m afraid.
People are again failing to distinguish between two nobody DJs who are at the bottom of the food-chain and the powerful management of a well-known radio station who made the decision to air the call.
Your analogy is great, as long as you take away the cigarettes, lawn and fire parts.
So, I just read thru this thread and I’m kind of curious where everyone is getting their information that this woman committed suicide. A little googling fails to turn up any news story that says her death was a suicide and in all the news stories I’ve read about her death, a cause is not given. In fact, one I read tonight said that the ME wouldn’t even have a cause of death until next week after the autopsy.
So all the people who are outraged about a prank phone call leading to suicide: where are you getting your information regarding the cause of death?
This is the only place I’ve heard they continued to air the prank after the suicide. Do you have a link?
ETA: suspected suicide, Snowboarder Bo. They haven’t officially released the cause of death but it is believed to be a suicide. All that has been officially said was that there were no suspicious circumstances.
I’ve read they promoted it overnight Sydney time the night of her death. Apparently these promos were pre-recorded and airing in the wee hours here when nobody was actually at the desk and before the news broke in waking hours.
IOW, it sounds like more evidence to support the case for moustache-twirling evilness until you actually hear the full story.
So, if I go to a bank and demand that they just hand over a whole bunch of money to me, and the teller who actually does that gets reprimanded afterwards for doing something that she definitely was not supposed to do, and she commits suicide then, am I a terrible person for causing her death? I would have no reasonable expectation that my demand for money would be met by anything other than someone laughing in my face, and the same holds true for these radio jockeys.
None of the outraged posts I’ve read in this thread refer to a “suspected suicide”.
Suspected by people with no real facts other than knowing that a woman who was only 46 years old with 2 children is dead.
I love the Australian news reports that call it an “apparent suicide”, even tho they offer no evidence or facts beyond the fact of death at 46 years old.
Does no one learn from other’s mistakes? Can’t people wait until they actually know something without getting all fucking pissy about it?
Wait until the cause of death comes back and the police release the suicide letter to the press wherein the prank call is cited as the primary reason or at least the tipping point for the decision to end her own life. Then get upset about something that actually happened.
The dust-up about this reminds me of the conversation on a train from How To Get Ahead In Advertising.
Good point - does anyone know where the Queen was that night?
Nah, they won’t let me in there, too many doors.
I refer you to post 17, YogSosoth rumbled Liz early on.
The Guardian - " The relatives of nurse Jacintha Saldanha have revealed that she told no one in the family about the prank call that has been blamed for driving her to suicide."
The Daily Mail - “’ It was a low, lazy and artless prank’: International backlash against sick jokers who boasted as tragedy of suicide nurse unfolded”
The Mirror - “Royal prank hoax nurse suicide tragedy: Husband’s fury at DJs and hospital bosses over Jacintha’s death”
The Belfast Telegraph - " 2Day FM radio DJs prepare to break silence over nurse Jacintha Saldanha’s suicide"
The Sun - " Husband of hoaxed suicide nurse tells of his grief"
The Week - “Hospital Turns on DJs after royal nurse’s suicide”
London Evening Standard - “Australian prank DJs feel nurse ‘suicide’ backlash”
The Sunday Times - " Hospital blames DJs for nurse’s suicide"
ITN - “DJs face anger over nurse ‘suicide’”
Is it only wrong when Australian news reports do it?
This BBC story describes her death as an “Apparent Suicide” and her husband refers to her loss “in tragic circumstances” in the same article.
Many of the articles here have been closing with the “If you need help, call LifeLine/Similar organisation on this number” templates, which is also standard media procedure in stories surrounding suicide or mental illness.
Oof. Imagine going down in history as the “hoaxed suicide nurse.”
First, being a bank robber generally does qualify someone as a terrible person.
And second, they had every reason to expect someone to suffer serious humiliation and major damage to their career. Everything except the actual suicide was an easily predictable outcome of them choosing to broadcast their “prank”, and the suicide itself while not outright predictable was certainly something a reasonable person could have foreseen as a possible outcome. Suicide is the kind of thing one can expect to result from a ruined career and national humiliation.