Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard last week recorded a video for the national broadcaster ABC declaring that the Mayan calendar was right and the end of the world had arrived. "Whether the final blow comes from flesh-eating zombies, demonic hell beasts or from the total triumph of K-pop, if you know one thing about me, it's this: I will always fight for you to the very end," she said as she stood at a lectern with the Australian flag behind her.
What if some had taken the prime minister at her word and been driven by fear to take their own lives? Gillard would likely feel the same wrath as the hapless 2Day FM radio hosts who duped London's King Edward VII Hospital into divulging the treatment the duchess of Cambridge was receiving for acute morning sickness in the early stage of her pregnancy.
Three days after the prank call, in which the Sydney pair impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, hospital nurse Jacintha Saldanha is presumed to have taken her own life Friday. Taken off air and forced into hiding by those baying for more punishment, Mel Greig and Michael Christian are said to be shattered by the upshot of their hoax.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has stepped in. Critics of freewheeling 2Day FM are demanding stiff penalties. The British media has whipped up a storm, and London's King Edward VII Hospital has dashed off a letter noting the call was not live but pre-recorded and that it was a conscious decision by station management to broadcast it.
"Let's not use this as an overreaction that will ultimately affect press freedom," New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell said. "It's also a tragedy for a couple of radio presenters who have to live with the consequences, and it's also a tragedy that has impacted on the royal family." Gillard, too, would have been blamed if her spoof had ended in tragedy. It came without any warning whatsoever that it was just a joke.
Those outraged at the death of Saldanha want revenge. Among the legion of complainants on social-networking sites was Brooklyn Davidz who recorded his "hate [for] the media for doing this to a soul who dedicated her life to caring for others." But others like O'Farrell cautioned against overreaction. "There are no winners in this terrible saga," commentator Mark Day wrote in The Australian newspaper. "And there is no one to blame, just a cascading set of circumstances that led from a harmless prank to a ghastly outcome nobody could foresee."
He also warned that many were jumping the gun: Saldanha's death is so far only circumstantially linked to the prank call. Among those who appeared initially to see the call as harmless fun was Prince Charles, who when asked by a reporter about the royal pregnancy replied in jest: "How do you know I'm not a radio station?"
What has enraged the public is the insouciance of 2Day FM over the call and its aftermath. It is this that has raised pressure on the Communications and Media Authority to abandon normal protocol and begin "engaging with the licensee" before receiving a formal complaint from those deemed to have been harmed by its behaviour that its response has been unsatisfactory. Normally, the watchdog would wait 60 days before interceding in the complaints process.
The station continued to run a recording of the prank call hours after Saldanha's death. Hosts Greig and Christian delighted in the Indian-born woman's gullibility. "It's definitely a career highlight," Christian declared. The authority has never taken a station off the air, and its sanctions are not frightening. Other commercial stations that have lost advertising revenue after overstepping the line have got it back quickly. Max Moore-Wilton, the supremo at 2Day FM, held the line, insisting that no laws had been broken and what had transpired was a tragic chain of events. "The outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable," he said. "We are all saddened by the events of the last few days."