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[quote="Kaz"]Hmmmm that's all very well Shaz but you would have thought they might have learned from that last 'prank' when they tricked a 14 year old girl into admitting on air that she'd been raped!!

Nope I don't feel sorry for them at all although I don;t of course wish them any real harm that would be malicious! I hope this stops them doing such stupid things in future. They were still revelling in it all on Twitter yesterday!

Oh and speaking for myself I have never thought this kind of thing is funny - I was appalled by the Andrew Sachs thing! Stuff like this is spiteful [/quot



And neither do I Kaz, the idiot female is supposedly now suffering with depression.." Weakness of intellect birdie she cried.. So big a worm for so little inside."

So if the female radio presenter becomes so depressed over all of this and kills herself, then the guilt that was piled on her will also apply to those who 'made' her kill herself by piling on the guilt? Is that how it works? Will the Daily Hatemail be then winding its followers up into another frenzy of false piety?
One thing, who revealed Jacintha's name to the world? Who started the finger pointing? Aren't they just as culpable? Had they not told us, she may still be alive - but we'll never know.

The radio presenters were stupid. We've all been stupid at some time in our lives. Some of us have to live with the dreadful consequences of our stupidity, as they will. Some don't live to see the consequences of their actions, as Jacintha hasn't.

* We have a young woman, pregnant with her first baby, feeling absolutely hellish with morning sickness, and probably somehow maybe feeling it's her fault. I do hope this doesn't lead to tragic consequences for her, even post partum.
* We have a family grieving for the loss of their loved one.
* We have two young adults in Australia who are being pilloried and vilified, and the world baying for their blood.

I have compassion for Katherine.
I have compassion for the family of Jacintha Saldanha. My heart breaks for her and how she must have been feeling up to the point of her death.
I have compassion for Mel Greig and Michael Christian and their families. They did not set out that day with malicious intent aforethought. How on earth must it feel to have literally, the whole world turn against you? They are not evil people, they are just ordinary radio presenters doing what many of their generation do by acting daft. They won't do it again.

It's a dreadfully sad situation all 'round, but this frenzy of hate is out of all proportion to the acts. The media are just loving it - at least it fills their pages, plus it's a change to the Savile story.

Is it so different to what they used to do on Candid Camera? I could imagine them pretending to be royalty and doing the same or even that stupid thing Dom Joly used to do with a big phone? I hate that sort of humour, but that is because I personally hate being made to look silly but some people revel in it.

Oooj, there are some things I could argue with you about all week, but not your last post.

There was a prank. It could have been funny to those who like that sort of thing. They did pull it off for a while.

Then it went wrong and a person died. The radio presenters have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Will and Kate will forever know that the prank and interest in their first child caused the death of another human being - that would hurt any of us. And the Hospital will know that it failed its staff and it patients.

We do not know how or why Ms Saldanha died, so we should wait for the inquest; there will be one.

Workingman wrote:We do not know how or why Ms Saldanha died, so we should wait for the inquest; there will be one.

That is exactly what I think.

There is often more than one reason for suicide.

We should wait and see.

Aggers wrote:

Workingman wrote:We do not know how or why Ms Saldanha died, so we should wait for the inquest; there will be one.

That is exactly what I think.

There is often more than one reason for suicide.

We should wait and see.

I think that's what Debi, Ooj and myself have been saying....it is very unfair to heap all the blame on to these DJs when none of us know the ins and outs of Ms. Salhanda's life.
The media appear to be whipping up a frenzy of hatred towards these DJs. They have decided that Ms. Salhandra would have been still alive if it wasn't for this prank.
What they are ignoring is the massive part they played in what happened. I doubt many of us would have heard of 2Day FM ,let alone heard a broadcast by them. It was the media who enlightened us to the prank and kept it in the headlines and it is the same media who is now whipping up a witch hunt against the DJs involved.

miasmum wrote:Is it so different to what they used to do on Candid Camera? I could imagine them pretending to be royalty and doing the same or even that stupid thing Dom Joly used to do with a big phone? I hate that sort of humour, but that is because I personally hate being made to look silly but some people revel in it.

Radio 4 had a brilliant comedy series called Dead Ringers, later moved onto TV, and the weekly highlight was Jon Culshaw:

Culshaw performs prank telephone calls, impersonating among others Tom Baker's incarnation of the Doctor, Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, art critic Brian Sewell and talk show presenter Michael Parkinson. In the TV version, he roams as such characters, vexing shop assistants and salesmen with such pronouncements as, "I seek passage to Aldershot" which mirrors Alec Guinness's line in Star Wars "I seek passage to Alderaan." He also interviewed a bus stop of people as Parkinson. As the Doctor, he ventured into a furniture store seeking a replacement TARDIS, entering one wardrobe and re-emerging from another (to the astonishment of the shop clerk). He accompanied tourists on the London Eye while declaring they were trapped in a Sontaran "interstitial time helix".

Absolutely, I could not agree more.It is morally wrong as well as against religious beliefs for a person to commit suicide, the only time I think acceptable is if one is terminally ill and suffering. I see the girl we are not supposed to name in the doomed romance with Jeremy has tried to kill herself as I predicted, the awful DM and the others did their share there. Anyway who could ever have predicted the sad outcome of a prank, stirred up by the papers of course. It is very difficult on the spur of the moment to challenge the identity of anyone purporting to be a celebrity on the phone, I had it once, the Chairman came on my direct line wanting sensitive information. I did not recognise his voice and stalled for a while much to his chagrin but eventually assumed it was him and told him what he wanted but with misgivings. Anyway a very sad outcome that could not possibly have been predicted and the nurse must have been a very sensitive person to have done what she did for something that would soon have been forgotten in spite of the media. The hospital should have had measures in place to filter media calls as well as providing policemen with machine guns to protect her personally, maybe too they should have given out more bulletins, it would have been nice to know for those interested that it was only morning sickness, not that she was about to abort.

Oojamaflip wrote:So if the female radio presenter becomes so depressed over all of this and kills herself, then the guilt that was piled on her will also apply to those who 'made' her kill herself by piling on the guilt? Is that how it works? Will the Daily Hatemail be then winding its followers up into another frenzy of false piety?
One thing, who revealed Jacintha's name to the world? Who started the finger pointing? Aren't they just as culpable? Had they not told us, she may still be alive - but we'll never know.

The radio presenters were stupid. We've all been stupid at some time in our lives. Some of us have to live with the dreadful consequences of our stupidity, as they will. Some don't live to see the consequences of their actions, as Jacintha hasn't.

* We have a young woman, pregnant with her first baby, feeling absolutely hellish with morning sickness, and probably somehow maybe feeling it's her fault. I do hope this doesn't lead to tragic consequences for her, even post partum.
* We have a family grieving for the loss of their loved one.
* We have two young adults in Australia who are being pilloried and vilified, and the world baying for their blood.

I have compassion for Katherine.
I have compassion for the family of Jacintha Saldanha. My heart breaks for her and how she must have been feeling up to the point of her death.
I have compassion for Mel Greig and Michael Christian and their families. They did not set out that day with malicious intent aforethought. How on earth must it feel to have literally, the whole world turn against you? They are not evil people, they are just ordinary radio presenters doing what many of their generation do by acting daft. They won't do it again.

It's a dreadfully sad situation all 'round, but this frenzy of hate is out of all proportion to the acts. The media are just loving it - at least it fills their pages, plus it's a change to the Savile story.

Good post Ooj, I am agreeing with you throughout.

Actions all have consequences though don't they? I can accept that the two DJs didn't expect to get put through but this did not go out live! They had their lawyers look it over before they aired it - presumably as they realised it could possibly 'hurt' someone enough to want to sue! That to me speaks volumes............Nobody could foresee a death over this, but people could easily have lost their jobs or been disciplined for all they knew! Very funny................not!

Nobody sane would want the two DJs to hurt themselves physically over this - I certainly don't!! - but some genuine contrition for what they did and perhaps a resolution not to do anything so stupid again might be nice. I don't buy the tears on that TV interview BTW, the girl is beautifully perfectly made up, hair coiffed and dabbing at her tears, mascara intact, with a white hanky. It's what anyone in the public eye who is deemed to have done something wrong does these days isn't it? Goes on telly and cries and then everyone feels sorry for them................Tiger Woods comes to mind amongst others........they all do it! Call me a cynic!

Ms Saldhana came from Bristol so I expect the inquest into her death to be all over the local news here - I await it with interest..............

Oh and I don't read the DM, apart from occasionally the Femail pages or Health sections