Like most discussion on this incident on commercial radio, the situation is being over simplified. For example, the article assumes the girl in question is telling the truth. How do we know that she was in fact raped? How does she define rape? While lie-detectors are a very "iffy" device, what influence did the lie detector have on the girl?
There are lots of unanswered questions. I personally think the girl at the centre of the controversy is having everyone on.

There is no moral universe in the airways it all hinges on ratings and advertising dollars and over time, with competition, there is more pressure to push the boundaries.

The only way we, the public, can influence those at the top is to vote with our feet. Don't turn the dial to the shock jocks and reality rubbish that dominate our TVs and airways.

Well said Jennifer. Thank you for taking the trouble to care, and saying it for us.

For me it's a symptom of a broader neglect that is a sad and profound commentary on our materialistic culture. There are so many ways we don't take good care of our kids, from poor diet to poor school funding to abuse. Every species on the planet, bar one, devotes its greatest effort to getting its offspring off to the best possible start.

And Analyst's brutal cynicism is amazing but, unfortunately, not surprising.

Analyst manages to say in two breaths that there are lots of unanswered questions but that he/she thinks the girl is having us all on!

The points made and questions asked previous to this stunning assertion, however, are completely irrelevant. The mere fact of a mother colluding with amoral radio presenters to place her child in this absurd situation - where nothing she could have said or even a defiant silence would preserve her dignity - is child abuse, sexual or otherwise.

Analyst's conclusion is well nigh idiotic, at best, and at worst a condoning of this type of radio 'entertainment'. Where the listener blithely condones in this way - casting aspersions upon the girl's character - he or she is a participant in the abuse. That is 'reality' entertainment for you.

why, they inhabit the same moral universe as the rest of us - because we let them in, and so they can abuse a far wider audience than they could ever have imagined. This is the same universe where a young girl can be gang raped and caught on camera for further titillation on the internet.
Maybe beheadings became too boring, so the ante was upped.

When a person is looked upon as a 'thing', then all manner of abuse can happen, maybe this is just the start of something much worse to come.
And we thought Roman circuses only happened the once!

I simply ponder the attitude and lack of skills displayed by the mother in this entire episode.

Far from question the nature of radio broadcasters and "Shock Jocks" whose claim to fame is to sensationalise whatever topic comes within their graps

the real question to be asked is

where are the motives and morals and what sort of people do you call the attendant parent, who was there and was, in part, responsible for the protecton her child?

Or are we to assume the temptative value of a couple of tickets for a "Pink" concert were sufficiently persuasive an inducement to absolve her of all blame?