I don't think the DJs should shoulder any burden of guilt for the nurse's suicide whatsoever, but to call their call harmless is incorrect. They impersonated an individual to wrongfully access information not theirs to access. While their intentions were to prank, to create humour, what they did was far from harmless. They really should have thought about what they were doing before they made the call.
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Victim of prank call to Kate Middleton hospital found dead in suspected suicide
- Thread starter zomgbbqftw
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That is a pretty broad statement. There are two factors imho: causality and consciousness. Causality alone isn't enough to warrant responsibilty. Think of the chaos theory for a moment. There has to be a conscious momentum too. I am sure they didn't want to drive the nurse to suicide. But could they have foreseen it? I'd argue no. No reasonable person would have expected the nurse to kill herself.
Again the joke's still shit.
ElectricBlue187
Member
You seem to have forgot that she didn't follow security protocols, a breach of which can get people killed. You don't get to blame other people for both your mistakes and your awful reaction to those mistakes
This would be a fair point, if we held all dumb pranks to this same standard.
But just by making it a point about them rather than pranks in general, this does not appear to be the intent of your post... or really any other post or opinion that goes on to chastise the DJs directly.
It's very much a hindsight bias to turn around and start saying that they should've done better once the shit has hit the fan, if we're not going to keep it consistent and say that it's critical for us as a culture to establish a clear set of rules with regards to pranks, or similar pursuits.
blazeuk
Member
It was the nurses choice to commit suicide, we can speculate on the reasons for that, but we'll never fully know what she was thinking when she did it - I don't doubt that this whole thing pushed her towards it, but she alone decided her only option was to kill herself.
However, the DJ's are not blameless in the whole thing and whilst I think it's stupid to say it's all their fault, they were clearly part of the problem. They may not have been aware of how badly the prank call could (and did) turn out, but it seems fairly obvious that it's not a good idea to prank call a hospital and attempt to deceive them into giving out information which can cause people to lose their jobs. Their excuse of "We didn't think it would go that far" isn't really the point, their intent was to get confidential information by deception (in the form of a 'prank') - given there were plenty of complaints over this before she had killed herself, it would seem many people agreed it was going too far.
There were multiple points at which there were failures by different people (at the radio station and the hospital) and the press certainly haven't helped (would we expect anything else?). The DJ's are part of the problem, but it doesn't all fall on them.
However, the DJ's are not blameless in the whole thing and whilst I think it's stupid to say it's all their fault, they were clearly part of the problem. They may not have been aware of how badly the prank call could (and did) turn out, but it seems fairly obvious that it's not a good idea to prank call a hospital and attempt to deceive them into giving out information which can cause people to lose their jobs. Their excuse of "We didn't think it would go that far" isn't really the point, their intent was to get confidential information by deception (in the form of a 'prank') - given there were plenty of complaints over this before she had killed herself, it would seem many people agreed it was going too far.
There were multiple points at which there were failures by different people (at the radio station and the hospital) and the press certainly haven't helped (would we expect anything else?). The DJ's are part of the problem, but it doesn't all fall on them.
radioheadrule83
Banned
Blaming 'underlying' depression or her health absolves everybody else of all moral, ethical choices they made and absolves them of all responsibility. The media culture on its own, the attention, pressure, and hounding, people setting up camp outside your house -- that could very well drive a healthy person to become unhealthy, to become self-hating, and depressed. Likewise, regarding the actions of her employer and those around her. Indeed, I find it hard to imagine this woman having killed herself without the influence of the media and others.
Like I said, we don't have many proper newspapers in the UK, we have comic books for the reactionary retarded. The television news media is going the same way. We employ people to stalk other people, impede their privacy and freedom and report back on every bit of trivial shit possible purely for our entertainment. The prank was based on such interest. The woman did not deserve the hounding and public humiliation she got, working in what is already a high pressure public sector job where she was probably already having to wonder/worry about keeping it.
Baraka in the White House
2-Terms of Kombat
I feel bad for the DJs involved. I've seen them being interviewed and it's obvious they had no fucking clue this was where their prank was headed.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
No, it doesn't. It's a concurrent fact.
I was not absolving the media of its responsibility. In fact I pointed out several times that they shared the blame. I was, though, absolving the DJs of blame.
The original plan was to just prank the receptionist and speak to her in bad accents. They probably would need to get permission to then broadcast this. However as soon as the nurse patched them through the situation changed.
This is a now security breach so it becomes a valid news story in it's own right and not just a prank. If these guys got through someone with nefarious motives could have done the same. Obviously the hospital will not want it broadcast, so freedom of the press and avoiding cover ups comes into play.
They could have got confidential information but they didn't. So again it was all ok to broadcast. If they had been told for example that the patient had contracted some illness they would then have had censor those parts of the conversation out, but still show them getting put through(and still showing the harmless parts and their prank). But because what they were told was 'harmless' it was all ok to broadcast, serving as both a prank and a news story.
It could get the nurse sacked, but that is the nurses fault. They can't hide this and let the nurse get away with it and potentially commit more security breaches? That's not the DJs problem. If this keeps hospital staff on their toes about security then that is a good thing.
The nurse couldn't handle the media blitz. Hoever it's a hot situation. Royals = Media interest. The hospital and nurses duty is to protect the princess from media intrusion and she failed to do that and it backfired on her. The hospital also was aware it's a hot situation, didn't put the right processes in place and also possibly failed to protect the nurse and give her the right support.
plagiarize
Banned
is it a fact though? that we know, I mean.
There was no hindsight bias in my post, as I've already said I don't feel they are to blame for anything that happened after the call. Making the call was a matter of foresight, not hindsight. Identity and data theft is serious business, illegal, and shouldn't be done even for a prank. It would take just two seconds of thought on behalf of the DJs to go, "Hang on, what we're about to do is illegal and potentially damaging".
"It was a joke" is never a good excuse for breaking the law. I wouldn't put such things on the level of a simple prank.
But it was a joke. You're blowing the prank way out of proportion. This would have been a simple, harmless prank call if there wasn't a mentally ill person in the equation and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
There's a strong historic precedent for comedians approaching ordinary people and making them look foolish for the sake of comedy. Triumph the Insult Dog, Crank Yankers, Steve Penk, Jay Walking, Sgt. Hartman, Jerky Boys, Guido Hatzis, Mark Knopfler, Dave and Rupert Annoy People, Joe Pesci, You kick my dog, is Mr Wall there, is your fridge running?
Watching ordinary people floundering for the sake of comedy can be extremely funny when done properly and there's no need to start a witch-hunt just because one mentally ill person had an illogically suicidal reaction to a phone call.
There's a strong historic precedent for comedians approaching ordinary people and making them look foolish for the sake of comedy. Triumph the Insult Dog, Crank Yankers, Steve Penk, Jay Walking, Sgt. Hartman, Jerky Boys, Guido Hatzis, Mark Knopfler, Dave and Rupert Annoy People, Joe Pesci, You kick my dog, is Mr Wall there, is your fridge running?
Watching ordinary people floundering for the sake of comedy can be extremely funny when done properly and there's no need to start a witch-hunt just because one mentally ill person had an illogically suicidal reaction to a phone call.
Already posted, and no, he is not.
doctorcdcs
Member
Talk about a blast from the past. I can't even remember the last time I was on that website.
Oops, didn't notice it was already posted. He is spot on though imo.
The last time I went there was for when he was pimping his Nokia over the iPhone, good times.
Edit: this one - http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
Seems he's done heaps of updates between then and now that I've missed, got some reading to do tonight.
The last time I went there was for when he was pimping his Nokia over the iPhone, good times.
Edit: this one - http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
Seems he's done heaps of updates between then and now that I've missed, got some reading to do tonight.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Keeping it real douchey. I don't agree with blaming the djs for the suicide but some of the stuff there is just assholish. Thats Maddox though I guess.
UnluckyKate
Member
Holy crap I read
Tesseract
Banned
he's way, way off here. dude is fucking crusty.
Clay Davis
Member
while I don't believe the entire blame lies with those who called her, I find his reasoning a bit shit in all honesty.
he doesn't take into a whole range of factors that could have pushed a already suffering person over the edge and instead decides that she's entirely to blame.
bit of a plank really.
It isn't a nurses job to provide security for a pregnant future queen... It's what countries have security services for, and it appears that the UK services were absent for whatever reason.
When keeping it real goes wrong, but what do you expect from a has-been net 'celebrity'.
Synth_floyd
Banned
Maddox totally missed the boat. He could've gone into TV or something when he was at the peak of his skill and popularity. Instead he came out with a shitty book and now occasionally updates his webpage. He was funnier than most of the hack writers on Leno or Conan or any of the other late night shows.
Nah, mainly because no one is using the suicide to guilt anyone. People are using the utter stupidity of the station, producer, dj's and even the hospital to guilt people. The only places I have seen anyone blame the dj's for the suicide is when people are arguing against doing that. The very definition of a straw man.
I kinda agree with some of what he said. Some of it not so much.
Nearly every media article I've read has been trying to push the guilt onto the DJs and away from the actual nurse who decided to kill herself. Not sure what you've been reading...
andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
This is true. Nurses get the shit end in many respects. Hospitals need to make profits and are usually understaffed.
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