Of Pregnant Royals, Hoax Phone Calls, and Suicide
On monday, Kate Middleton was taken to hospital with severe morning sickness.
On Wednesday, DJs from an Australian radio station made a hoax phone call to the hospital, pretending to be the Queen and the Duke of York. A nurse at the hospital took the call, fell for the hoax, and put the callers through.
Originally Posted by BBC
Today, the nurse who fell for the hoax has been found dead. Suicide assumed.
Fairly tragic set of circumstances.
Yeah, well, even without the suicide it was a cruel thing to do. Hospitals don't look kindly on people who tell third parties about the health status of their clients. The nurse was bound to lose her job, now she's dead. But some punks on the radio had their five minutes of fame on youtube.
Congratulations America
Such a shame.
Certain radio show prank phone calls can be funny, but not this. Why can't the media leave royalty (or famous people) alone....when they're in the hospital?
It's tragic but let's not rush out to lambast the radio DJs too severely. Pranks have been part and parcel of many radio shows for a long time and the accents were not just utterly horrendous but included a man in the background "barking" as a Corgi. They weren't expecting to be put through. Its not the first time the royals have had a prank like this either.
This is tragic but nobody planned or expected a suicide. It's easy to overreact to what was meant as a silly joke at the time - and we don't know (and I don't want to know) the ins or outs of this nurses life. We don't know if this was even related.
"Not expecting to be put through" means the radio show could have created an entertaining gag for its listeners, without actually trying to breach privacy.
"We'll try to get through by putting on ridiculous accents but if we do, we'll cut the call short" - how boring is that? Its always the premise of these prank calls that they try and push their luck and see what they can get from it, if anything. I don't see any evidence to suggest the nurse was going to lose her job or anything like that over this - in fact the Hospital have said they were supporting the nurse and I don't see any reason to call them liars. The DJs never spoke to or were put through to Kate herself. The Royal Family could hardly blame a nurse making an innocent mistake at 5:30AM taking a call and trying to be helpful, especially given Her Majesty's own history with prank calls.
Would we be discussing this with such uproar had the nurse not committed suicide? No.Hoaxing: A national pastime
In 1995, Canadian DJ Pierre Brassard got through to Buckingham Palace pretending to be Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
He chatted to the Queen for 15 minutes on air - eliciting a promise that she would try to influence Quebec's referendum on proposals to break away from Canada - and she never realised it was a hoax.
Could the DJs have reasonably predicted worse would commit suicide? No.
Media outlets were already skating on thin ice before this incident. The nurse's suicide added another element of 'unintended harm'...this time quite tragic. But it doesn't change the overall debate about media's responsibility to respect privacy, even for public figures.
*That said, I hope Kate and Will -- and their children -- can overcome these challenges. Their struggles between private and public life is nothing any of us can imagine. It must feel particularly hard for Will, having lost his mum during a paparazzi chase....and now his wife and first unborn child are being stalked. For humor.
Last edited by GGT; 12-07-2012 at 07:41 PM.
Thats not stalking. Or rather, this instance was not stalking.
Also, the nurse who answered the phone and later committed suicide, and the nurse who actually disclosed the medical information are two different people. The nurse who committed suicide simply fell for the prank and handed the phone over to the royal couple's nurse.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20645838In the call, another nurse was tricked into revealing specific confidential information about the duchess's medical condition.
There's a world of difference between prank calls and high speed Pap chases.
A good start would be to stop calling the Duke and Duchess 'Will and Kate', it's not like the majority of people talking about them like that went to primary school with them.
Congratulations America
I suppose while you're at it you'll want to stop calling people Bill, Dubya or Barack? Or names like Mario, Angela, David, Silvio or Tony?
The era of calling people diffidently by their titles only is over. Good riddance too.
Of course there's still some people you rarely use their first names for, I've never called him Francois (don't know how to do the squiggle under the c on the web) but then for centuries his inaugural officeholder ancestor was called by his first name.
EDIT: Deliberately not named titles in this post so sorry for any confusion as to whom I am referring to in any of these, especially sort-of out of any context. I suspect that each first name will be familiar though at least to a European and each has been called by it rather than just their titles in the past. I suspect Hazir will be able to identify 100% of these despite not going to primary school with any of them.
It's not about deference, it's about respecting one's privacy. If you are going to meet any of the people you mentioned you're not going to adress them with their first name, for the simple reason that you are not in their intimate circle. If you don't understand the difference between that and groveling for authority you have yet exposed another hole in your senses.
Congratulations America
Then you have an issue with most of modern society. I call everyone I actually know normally (intimate acquaintance or not) by their first name. The last time I can recall surnames being "the norm" is when a student for teachers/professors and that's because the pupil->teacher relationship is still rightly based around diffidence.
Why do we know each of them by name? Why have each regularly been called by their names?
No doubt a victim of bullying, and no doubt Lewk is thinking something deplorable and dumb right now
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
On the one hand, a person is dead, which is sad. On the other hand, was this really foreseeable? What if you ask someone to buy you a coffee, and they get hit by a bus as a result? Are you really to blame for the unfortunate result?
Hope is the denial of reality
No one is responsible for her death except herself. Suicide is 100% choice - no one else is to blame.
Indeed I don't think the DJs are accountable. No one could foresee this.
This morning's news states that the two DJs are "completely shattered", which is understandable.
The same article states that pranks have been a part of radio shows for decades, and that there is nothing inherently wrong with such a culture, which I also agree with.
As you point out in that other thread, yes, sometimes you are.
Congratulations America
I had also read somewhere that the nurse who picked-up wasn't even formally reprimanded for the error. Clearly there was a deeper layer of depression here.
It's not as if formal reprimands are the only way to make someone really regret things.
Confidentiality is extraordinarily important to modern medicine. Radio shows should take note and stick to normal pranks
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I know, we have an intense (arguably stupidly-designed) law about it called HIPPA. But short of a formal reprimand it's hard to tell what was actually done to make her feel bad about this (if anything). Probably will never know, everyone involved is going to clam-up like whoa.
The fact that she became the laughing stock of the internet?
There are several meme people who have noted hitting depression because of the unwanted attention for unflattering or insulting pictures. Scumbag Steve's mental health went south for a while, and he still can't hold down a job.
and HIPPA may be a maze, but it provides important protections that every worker deserves. It seems to work like its meant to, at least in my experiences.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
You are to blame if the consequence was foreseeable (and you engaged in an illegal action, which might or might not be the case here). I don't think it was.
Hope is the denial of reality
Maybe not a death, but very negative consequences for the people involved?
Congratulations America
I could see you being held civilly liable (e.g. if the nurse lost her job as a result of the prank). It's the criminal part I disagree with.
Hope is the denial of reality
No, not even losing the job (which didn't happen) would have been foreseeable.
Its tragic because of what the nurse decided to do, it should be left at that.
Making somebody lose their job is not criminal; it's just very despicable behaviour. I agree they could not have foreseen a death. Although I would say, future pranksters may not get away so easily.
Congratulations America
Excuse me for using their familiar names, as splashed across magazine covers, Hazir. The "Royal Couple".....
shouldn't have to give up their privacy just because they're Royalty or public figures. Yes, they've been stalked by tabloids and independent photographers (aka paparazzi), even before their official engagement. Weren't there pics of topless sunbathing using telephoto lenses that exceeded their ability to engage in "private" behavior?
This is a journalism-based quandary, made even more difficult as our media is driven less by journalistic standards, and more by craven public "entertainment".
You didn't learn that you can't absolve yourself by pointing out the mistakes of others?
Congratulations America
Who says I'm trying to absolve myself?
And what's wrong with pointing out the mistakes of journalism, when it tries to become entertainment?
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