csteele

amazingly we are on the same page with this one. Surely the announcers having to live with this is enough punishment for what most would of considered a fairly benign joke. Maybe the media making such a fuss over a little morning sickness was the thing that was totally overboard.

Yes, csteele, that was my intended meaning....that one would imagine there were other underlying issues in addition to the prank that led to a decision to suicide.

I also agree with runner that the media go a little (a lot) ga-ga over anything like this - (although the morning sickness in question appears to have been more than "a little")

We need legislated code of conduct rules for media. The likes of sandilands calling someone a fat slag, and Jones over the top comments, putting someone in a chaff bag. The comments have no value, and put us as a nation in a bad light.
The latest impersonator, is a national disgrace.
And now someone has suicided, No amount of underlying problems will fix anything, that is only making excuses for something that was a valueless prank, and should not have happened. That is not informative or entertaining.

I was awake and on Twitter only minutes after this story was broken at 2:10AM AEDST Saturday 8 December: It was 3:10PM GMT Friday in London when BBC Breaking tweeted it. https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/277067690546429952

The first thing to note is that the claim as to the death having been a suicide is purely a media claim. The police have used the terms 'unexplained' and 'not suspicious' in relation to this death, and indicated cause will not be known until an autopsy can be conducted. The time and place of death is reported as having been 9:35AM GMT Friday 7 December, in premises near to the King Edward VII private hospital described as nurses' quarters.

The second thing to note is that the nurse involved is reported as having taken the hoax call at around 5:30AM GMT on the day it was made (Tuesday?) only because there was no receptionist on duty at that hour of the day, and that her only involvement was in putting the call through to the nurse on duty in the ward. The dead nurse conveyed no information whatever to the 2dayFM DJs as to the medical condition of the Duchess of Cambridge. Hospital management has been at pains to assert that the dead nurse had not been subject to any disciplinary action or considered at fault in putting the call through as she did.

The third thing to note is that as far as I saw in real time there was little if any Twitter abuse or outrage of the like claimed in the media. Nothing obviously connected was trending between 2:10AM and 10:30AM AEDST. A Twitter user I follow located in the UK observed, at 10:26AM AEDST Saturday, around ten hours after the story had broken, that "Theres not been a lot tweeted as far [as] I can tell so don't know ... its odd. Awful thing to happen." https://twitter.com/emmaZbolland/status/277192272251072513

All is most definitely not as it is being made to seem. OTT damage control, IMO.

To those that are posting excuses and sympathy for the two idiots on radio.

It is beyond time that people, that are supposed to be adults, took responsibilty for their actions.

I see this in the same light as a hoax call to emergency services which may place somebody else in jeaprody. I had this view well before the nurse took her life.

The point being that the two concerned were still joking about it even after apologizing. They showed no remorse then and I do not believe they have any now. I bet they are still sniggering to each other about how clever they are. It sickens me to see their employer saying they are concerned about the idiots well being. They deserve to be hauled over the coals in every possible manner. At least sacked and never to work in radio again, and prosecuted. Paraded and publicly humiliated seems fitting.

Jeff Kennett, and others, is a fool to take the presenters side. They are not victims as some are making out. Totally irresponsible and a good arguement for increasing the eligible age for driving and voting.

Poirot,
Yes I've seen those shows on ABC3, ironically they all originated in the U.K, which is now known for producing the worst children's television on the market, I tell my kids that shows like "Dani's Place" will give them brain damage. If you look at the kid's shows produced here, in Canada and the U.S, shows like "My Place", "De Grassi" or "Blue Water High" and so on they're leagues ahead of the dross coming from the U.K.
When I was a kid my parents and teachers always told us that practical jokes were not funny, like sneaking up on someone and frightening them or otherwise humiliating another person.