This week saw the end of a bizarre and disturbing incident that
spanned the globe.
Jacinda Saldanha, the Indian nurse who killed herself after being duped by a hoax phone call, was buried in India.
But IS this the end? With around 2000 mourners on-hand, and millions more voyeuristically following the story via internet news, this sad tale has grown much larger than itself. The incidents leading to it are being investigated by the London Metropolitan Police.
In a nutshell...2DayFM's Michael Christian and Mel Greig try their luck posing as the Queen and Prince Charles, placing a prank call to a private London hospital on December 7th. Jacinda answers the phone. They can't believe their luck, when she transfers them to the ward where Duchess Catherine is being treated for acute morning sickness. At that point, another nurse releases a few details. A few days later, Jacinda is found dead - she leaves three suicide notes, one criticising her employers.
Reports have claimed she felt under pressure from the hospital after the prank, and that she'd been in a separate "personal disagreement" with a colleague, which she felt had not been handled appropriately by management.
The hospital has defended itself, saying it offered her support. It stressed she had not been disciplined for transferring the call, which it called a "cruel trick".
Radio station 2DayFM suspended the DJs and announced it would be donating all the profits from its advertising to a fund set up to assist the Saldanha family. It even cancelled its Christmas party. The two hosts tearfully appeared on Ozzie TV current affairs shows, saying they'd never imagined their hoax would result in this.
Every old wireless man and his dog, from their own glory days, pontificated that of course THEY would never have done such a heinous thing! The UK media didn't buy into the tears at all, instead milking hard the 'sympathy-for-the-family' angle.
The Brit PM expressed sympathy and condolences to the Saldanha family in Parliament and a UK Labour MP called for a full inquiry.
Conversely, a Brit anti-royalist singer slammed the Royals, saying they didn't give a damn about Jacinda Saldanha's death.
Please excuse my shovelful of cynicism, but let's wipe away all the crocodile tears and take a closer look here.
(1) Unless 2DayFM controls every breath its DJs take (and I know from experience that no station can!), then the station is not to blame.
(2) Michael Christian and Mel Greig started this snowball rolling all by their own pin-brained selves, and thus... (more to come).
(3) Jacinda, who transferred the call, is not to blame for the original incident either, but... (yes, a proviso is coming).
(4) Nor is the nurse who released some info.
(5) The Royals' decision to have low-key security, instead of a bodyguard to screen every call, contributed to the info release...but was in no way to blame for the call in the first place.
(6) It also appears the hospital is not guilty, Your Honour.
So, this kangaroo court rules that:
(Proviso 1) ...Christian and Greig were responsible for the Ground Zero incident. Radio announcers are there to 'inform and entertain'. Had they gathered the juicy (*yawn*) details of the Royal morning vomit and delivered it as information, that may have been ok. Of no particular value, but maybe ok. But to make a hoax call over this particular subject was a waste of time and hardly entertainment.
(Proviso 2) ...Jacinda Saldanha was responsible for her own death. With three suicide notes written, she sure had some issues goin' on, one of which sounds unrelated to this fiasco. No-one pulls their own plug for simply saying "Putting you through now." That's taking job dedication to a whole new level!
Given half a chance, this story would have been just another Andy Warhol 15-minute wonder. Seems the demons inside Jacinda's head couldn't let this go...
 |
| Troubled soul? |
Jacinda Saldanha, the Indian nurse who killed herself after being duped by a hoax phone call, was buried in India.
But IS this the end? With around 2000 mourners on-hand, and millions more voyeuristically following the story via internet news, this sad tale has grown much larger than itself. The incidents leading to it are being investigated by the London Metropolitan Police.
In a nutshell...2DayFM's Michael Christian and Mel Greig try their luck posing as the Queen and Prince Charles, placing a prank call to a private London hospital on December 7th. Jacinda answers the phone. They can't believe their luck, when she transfers them to the ward where Duchess Catherine is being treated for acute morning sickness. At that point, another nurse releases a few details. A few days later, Jacinda is found dead - she leaves three suicide notes, one criticising her employers.
Reports have claimed she felt under pressure from the hospital after the prank, and that she'd been in a separate "personal disagreement" with a colleague, which she felt had not been handled appropriately by management.
The hospital has defended itself, saying it offered her support. It stressed she had not been disciplined for transferring the call, which it called a "cruel trick".
 |
| *sob* We...never...thought...*sob* EXACTLY! You never thought!!!!!! |
Every old wireless man and his dog, from their own glory days, pontificated that of course THEY would never have done such a heinous thing! The UK media didn't buy into the tears at all, instead milking hard the 'sympathy-for-the-family' angle.
The Brit PM expressed sympathy and condolences to the Saldanha family in Parliament and a UK Labour MP called for a full inquiry.
Conversely, a Brit anti-royalist singer slammed the Royals, saying they didn't give a damn about Jacinda Saldanha's death.
Please excuse my shovelful of cynicism, but let's wipe away all the crocodile tears and take a closer look here.
(1) Unless 2DayFM controls every breath its DJs take (and I know from experience that no station can!), then the station is not to blame.
(2) Michael Christian and Mel Greig started this snowball rolling all by their own pin-brained selves, and thus... (more to come).
(3) Jacinda, who transferred the call, is not to blame for the original incident either, but... (yes, a proviso is coming).
(4) Nor is the nurse who released some info.
(5) The Royals' decision to have low-key security, instead of a bodyguard to screen every call, contributed to the info release...but was in no way to blame for the call in the first place.
(6) It also appears the hospital is not guilty, Your Honour.
So, this kangaroo court rules that:
(Proviso 1) ...Christian and Greig were responsible for the Ground Zero incident. Radio announcers are there to 'inform and entertain'. Had they gathered the juicy (*yawn*) details of the Royal morning vomit and delivered it as information, that may have been ok. Of no particular value, but maybe ok. But to make a hoax call over this particular subject was a waste of time and hardly entertainment.
(Proviso 2) ...Jacinda Saldanha was responsible for her own death. With three suicide notes written, she sure had some issues goin' on, one of which sounds unrelated to this fiasco. No-one pulls their own plug for simply saying "Putting you through now." That's taking job dedication to a whole new level!
Given half a chance, this story would have been just another Andy Warhol 15-minute wonder. Seems the demons inside Jacinda's head couldn't let this go...
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