General News Discussion

[philipsteak]

Even before this I wasn't really a fan of these types of prank calls. Chris Morris doing it to show up the ' great and the good' is one thing. Picking on someone who is just doing their job seems a bit like bullying. Not only that, even if the victim thinks its a prank they can't say anything in case it isn't (not just this one, the ones as well were they pretend to be a member of the public, just a weird or crazy one). "fuck off ma'am, stop taking the piss" wouldn't have one down too well.

Probably once a month I get a phone call where I think, this has to be a wind up.it never is.

Edited December 8, 2012 by philipsteak

[feral chile]

Even before this I wasn't really a fan of these types of prank calls. Chris Morris doing it to show up the ' great and the good' is one thing. Picking on someone who is just doing their job seems a bit like bullying. Not only that, even if the victim thinks its a prank they can't say anything in case it isn't (not just this one, the ones as well were they pretend to be a member of

[Rufus Gwertigan]

yeah I was thinking that. You have to take every call at face value unless you have good reason to suspect the caller's not who they say they are. And there should have been guidance in place, I'd be surprised if there wasn't any.

[AcademicPistol]

prank calls are so easy if you can be bothered... what's so clever or funny about it?

[Guest]

I didn't say anything was clever or funny about it. Unless you mean that YouTube guy I mentioned? He is funny but not because he does prank calls.

[AcademicPistol]

it was more of a general, rhetorical question

[Ed209]

I do feel a bad for the DJs. A silly prank, but i don't think anyone could have had the forsight to have seen how wrong this could have gone. Their world is caving in right now and they'll carry this for life. I hope they're getting the support they need

[Guest]

I do feel a bad for the DJs. A silly prank, but i don't think anyone could have had the forsight to have seen how wrong this could have gone. Their world is caving in right now and they'll carry this for life. I hope they're getting the support they need

[feral chile]

again, it's the very nature of prank calls to not know, or care even, how the prankee might react.

I'm sure they're devestated... how do you think the nurses family feels?

[Ed209]

again, it's the very nature of prank calls to not know, or care even, how the prankee might react.

I'm sure they're devestated... how do you think the nurses family feels?

[pink_triangle]

The djs don't deserve all the blame but they are certainly not fault free as some have made out. When deciding to do the prank call there should have been a thought process.

1. Is a prank call ever appropriate - in my view yes, but if normal members of the public are involved, common courtesy should require their consent before broadcast.

2. If prank calls are ok, is a hospital an appropriate setting - In my opinion no, most would accept there are certain places eg emergency services and people eg mental health problems, dementia sufferers where these calls are inappropriate, I would include a hospital here.

3. Having fooled someone, is it then appropriate to continue the call - Again in my opinion definitely no, continuing the conversation aways had the potential to have a negative implication on them as a professional.

The djs can't be blamed for the suicide but in making the call they paid no consideration to the feelings of another human being. They didn't cause physical harm but some element of physical and professional harm was always likely. I can't see how anybody can claim in most circumstances the call would not have resulted in harm, it may not have been suicide but if the djs had thought about there options they should have realised they would cause a fellow human some elemenr of pain.

The way I look at it there are several people/ groups who have acted irresponsiblity and deserve some consequences for their actions. The djs will never work in commercial radio again and will live with the guilt forever, many others eg the media will get away completely.

[Guest]

The djs don't deserve all the blame but they are certainly not fault free as some have made out. When deciding to do the prank call there should have been a thought process.

1. Is a prank call ever appropriate - in my view yes, but if normal members of the public are involved, common courtesy should require their consent before broadcast.

2. If prank calls are ok, is a hospital an appropriate setting - In my opinion no, most would accept there are certain places eg emergency services and people eg mental health problems, dementia sufferers where these calls are inappropriate, I would include a hospital here.

3. Having fooled someone, is it then appropriate to continue the call - Again in my opinion definitely no, continuing the conversation aways had the potential to have a negative implication on them as a professional.

The djs can't be blamed for the suicide but in making the call they paid no consideration to the feelings of another human being. They didn't cause physical harm but some element of physical and professional harm was always likely. I can't see how anybody can claim in most circumstances the call would not have resulted in harm, it may not have been suicide but if the djs had thought about there options they should have realised they would cause a fellow human some elemenr of pain.

The way I look at it there are several people/ groups who have acted irresponsiblity and deserve some consequences for their actions. The djs will never work in commercial radio again and will live with the guilt forever, many others eg the media will get away completely.

Edited December 8, 2012 by tonyblair

[t8yman]

so was chris moriss wrong to get Bernard Manning banging on about the new illegal drug "cake"? or was it incredibly funny?

i go with the latter, you cant decry something with hindsight because it went badly wrong, but also allow it to be hailed as comedy genius when it doesn't. you could argue that manning was an odious, rascist twat (and I wouldnt disagree) but he was subjected to far worse than the nurse in this situation imho. and morris is hailed as a comedy hero.....

(I've just realised I said earlier that I dont find prank calls funny, yet I think chris morris fucking nailed it........)

Edited December 8, 2012 by t8yman

[pink_triangle]

Manning was a celebrity used to the exposure. The nurse as far as I know had never courted attention. Also I would argue the manning call was far less likely to have significant professional consequences.

I can't agree with the hindsight argument, my first thought when I heard about the prank was that the djs were scumbags as their action could end up costing the nurses their jobs. The station continued to gloat about the prank despite nurses in Australia claiming the prank could have resulted in the nurses being sacked if they were Australian. The hospital are correct to criticise the station today, prank calls to hospitals are not acceptable in any circumstances.

[Alcatraz]

As someone who's actually quite a big fan of American hot talk (shock) radio, I really don't think these Aussies are shock jocks, just 'kooky fun' morning guys who did truly dreadful impressions of the Queen and Prince Charles. If they are 'shock jocks', I'd hope they'd come up with something a little more 'shocking' than a prank call. As far as I can tell, 2Day FM is a similar format to Radio 1, and I've heard countless prank calls on Radio 1 over the years. As people have said, the moronic thing was doing it to a hospital.

On the other hand, I wouldn't say the call itself was receiving rampant attention from the media before the suicide (It really was just one of those 'gag' stories news websites had buried somewhere) so to portray this as a 'media drives nurse to suicide' when trying to defend the DJs is a little baseless. Clearly the poor lady had other troubles, and frankly, I find any press attention being given to an individuals suicide as a little off in its own right so I hope the story goes away imminently.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Alcatraz

[pink_triangle]

I have done a bit of reading up about the consent aspect of the prank call, apparently in Britain you (sensibly in my opinion) need consent before broadcast but abroad that is not always the case. Apparently actors are often used to get around the consent issue here.

[kaosmark2]

I have done a bit of reading up about the consent aspect of the prank call, apparently in Britain you (sensibly in my opinion) need consent before broadcast but abroad that is not always the case. Apparently actors are often used to get around the consent issue here.

[eFestivals]

no, it would make customers pay tax on their tax behalf, by passing the cost onto them

if you take that view then no taxes can ever be changed, because there's always an unwanted impact somewhere from any tax change.

So we'll take your immovable view, and guess what? Things still move and the customers pay ever-more tax on the behalf of companies as ever-more companies 'opt out' of paying tax.

So your 'doing nothing' is worse than my idea. That's a fact that there's no getting away from.

I've gotta say I never thought of you as the tax avoiders champion, but that's what you have proved yourself a being.

[eFestivals]

I don't think you are a tax avoiders champion to realise that taxes have a real impact on everyones pockets.

Well of course they do - but to use that as an excuse for not doing anything which might lessen the impact of taxes on people's pockets is as anti-intelligent as things can get.

I've not said that my idea is perfect, but the ideas being used to rebut it have been laughable. All they get to mean is that it's impossible for the tax system to have any change in your eyes.

I hate this over focus on tax at the moment. Its the least of our worries right now. The lower and middle classes are taxed to death already.

what has failed to enter your head is that what I suggested is about reducing the taxes on individuals.

If it's the case that any tax gets passed onto customers (yet it's not, else the tax system would be worthless as a revenue raising measure) then what i've suggested has no impact onto the customer, because it's not a tax raising measure it's a tax adjustment measure (the movement of tax from one thing to another).

I'm not trying to claim what I've suggested as perfect. I've merely said that it would make collecting taxes from companies in the way they're already meant to be paying tax into a more efficient system whereby it's harder for companies to avoid the taxes they should already be paying - and it would certainly be that.

The impact of changing from the current system to a new and more effecient one can be mitigated to a massive extent by an incremental introduction over many years of this turnover tax, along with (if necessary) the (perhaps temporary) reduction of other taxes. There does not have to be an end user impact.

[eFestivals]

Poor them.... Not so funny now hey... They don't seem to get it still really...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20662352

They invaded someone's personal medical space. Embarrassed someone on a international scale ( I am presuming the nurses at this place are the best of the best as well and the embarrassment can only be higher). And they say they you couldn't see how this would lead to someone killing themselves.

yeah, Candid Camera, Beadle's About, and a million other TV shows were take off air because of the risk of people topping themselves.

[pink_triangle]

Poor them.... Not so funny now hey... They don't seem to get it still really...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20662352

They invaded someone's personal medical space. Embarrassed someone on a international scale ( I am presuming the nurses at this place are the best of the best as well and the embarrassment can only be higher). And they say they you couldn't see how this would lead to someone killing themselves.

[eFestivals]

They said "We wanted to be hung up on". Well there was nothing to stop them ending the call themselves when the nurse was about to put them through to a colleague, when a lot of potential for harm could have been significantly reduced.

thing is, these sorts of calls do normally end in the phone being hung up. If the caller gets thru they're always stumped with something to say.

This reminds me of that guy who was recently convicted for shouting "stop the cuts" at Dave Moron, on the basis that he'd got around a security cordon.

Surely it's for security to be secure, and not the responsibility of someone who can get around it for the failure of that security?

[eFestivals]

Pretty sure

Not quite the same...

Don't remember either fucking with peoples careers... or personal medical issues....

Pretty sure they also had peoples permission to use the footage.

oh, those aussies, they're just plain evil. Us Brits would never do such a thing.

And of course the fuss that's been kicked up is nothing to do with our newspapers wanting to suggest that they're whiter than white in a post-Leveson world, oh no.

Let's get those DJs and string them up. It's like they put the noose round that nurses neck themselves.

[eFestivals]

Stop being a knob and putting words in my mouth....

the only words that should be leaving anyone's mouth about this, other than it's sad she's killed herself, is "shit happens".

It's about as likely that someone would kill themselves off the back of a minor prank like this as it is a shopkeeper tops himself when you say his prices are too high and you'll shop somewhere else.

Edited December 10, 2012 by eFestivals

[pink_triangle]

thing is, these sorts of calls do normally end in the phone being hung up. If the caller gets thru they're always stumped with something to say.

This reminds me of that guy who was recently convicted for shouting "stop the cuts" at Dave Moron, on the basis that he'd got around a security cordon.

Surely it's for security to be secure, and not the responsibility of someone who can get around it for the failure of that security?