Media watchdog to hold talks with Today Network over prank call linked to nurse’s apparent suicide
Media regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority is to hold talks with the Today Network over the prank call which appears to have later led to the suicide of a nurse in the UK.
However, ACMA appears to be so far resisting opening a formal investigation into the stunt – which saw presenters Michael “MC” Christian and Mel Greig impersonate Prince Charles and The Queen in a telephone call to the London hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for morning sickness.
It was reported this morning that the nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who put the call though, appeared to have killed herself.
This morning ACMA chairman Chris Chapman issued a statement saying:
ACMA is the most inadequate, flaccid governing body around. Radio and TV get away with anything and everything, while ACMA waits twiddling their fingers for someone to complain to the network and them complain to them. ACMA then takes a year to indicate that yes, they were in breach of the code and naughty, naughty for them. Can we please have a media regulator who will actually do something, and in a timely manner!
Playing devil’s advocate here: Because 2Day, and other commercial radio stations, have indulged, perhaps encouraged, this kind of onair behaviour — Kyle Sandilands with his “fat slag” comments, Alan Jones with his chaff bag — it was inevitable that a tragedy such as this would occur. Furthermore, it is reasonable to think that the management of the stations in question might anticipate this. Discuss.
ACMA are toothless tigers. Been there and done that with complaints to them. They do little more than slap with a feather the radio and tv stations they “investigate”, if they ever find them committing an offence, which according to their standards is few and far between. Regurgitating in a finding ad infinitum what a station’s lawyer says to them in response, is not what I call a fair or impartial investigation.
@BD – please don’t end your comments with “Discuss” as if you’re testing our intelligence. It’s embarrassing that you think we all consider your submission worthy of our analysis.
These radio prank calls have been around for 30 years or more?