To feel sorry for the Australian DJs?

[andapartridgeinaRowantree]

Obviously more sorry for the nurse's family. I wonder how long she was having suicidal thoughts for? I can't think this could have been the only cause,

But these pranks have been going on for such a long time and those DJs could not have predicted such a result and are going to have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

It's such a tragedy and I feel very sad for all concerned.

@EverlongLovesHerChristmasRobin

Santa rarely I've called someone something knowing it would be deleted but not caring because I was so mad.

But in this case I was mindful of not purposely called a certain someone anything. But obviously the powers that be think otherwise.

Everlong, we know that's certainly true of you almost all the time.

But on this thread, you were deleted for calling someone "a disgrace" and for saying she was "winding people up. maybe you get off on it"

If you had said her posts were disgraceful, that would have been fine. But by calling her a disgrace, you attacked her personally.

Hope that clarifies things a little.

@natation

aha so the dead woman is not on mumsnet so it's ok to attack what she did, ok I understand now.

Not necessarily. As we said, we'll review those posts. But, if they are deleted, it will be because we deem them "beyond the place" rather than a personal attack on another MNer.

I think unless it is a personal attack (I'm coming to chop your head off), personal information given out/something that could out someone, or something libelous, then deleting posts can give a very one sided debate.

By all means, MN, ask a poster to reconsider anything falling into these areas, or risk being deleted, but to not give the right of reply is a bit one sided. There will always be the the type poster who will run to Teacher if someone calls them on a post.

@EverlongLovesHerChristmasRobin

So we can't call someone a fucking cowbag for posting something extremely vile? But their posts are left to stand?

How is this fair mnhq?

No you can't because you are breaking the rules too.

But you can attack her posts and say they're 'fucking vile'.

Right, trying to bring another sensible point into this, as per Hefty's comment.

I was asked whether I felt sorry for/sympathy for the DJs. My response was that it wasn't unreasonable, but personally I didn't because I thought what they did was cruel even before the awful consequences. I personally think that the DJs and those higher up at the station should be sacked. not for what happened, but because they prank called a hospital and because they thought it was appropriate to make someone who was potentially very, very sick the butt of a joke. The one area where i do feel slightly sorry for the DJs is that their station is letting them be the public face of this and hiding in their own anonymity. Contrast the recent BBC Panorama, where the DG almost immediately carried the can publicly and resigned.

However, you can not feel sympathy for someone without being full of frothing vitriol. Just because I don't feel sorry for them, doesn't mean I hate them or anything. You can feel someone is not particularly deserving of sympathy without actively wishing them ill.

@HeftyHeifer

I came back hoping to see the thread back to a sensible place of discussion of what's a very sensitive topic. Sadly mistaken. It seems that posters are allowed to come onto a thread with offensive AND provocative statements in their posts which are clearly intended to wreak havoc and cause a lot of upset, then disappear after a feeble attempt at trying to explain some of their heinous comments and 'get away with it'.

HeftyHeifer, you can be 100% sure that if we thought someone was coming onto a thread with the clear intention of 'wreaking havoc', we would be, at the very least, dropping them a mail. At the very least.

God I'm almost laughing. I called someone a disgrace and it warrants being deleted. I've seen a million times worse left to stand.

On the thread which I was on and deleted (as we're quite a few people) lots of people did report the OP as it was clearly a piss take. S/he was having a go at everyone and being rude, ignorant and some posters were really pouring our their hearts online in the hope of helping her/him out. The OP wasn't deleted but the thread eventually did go 'puf'.

It's a bit like child-rearing. Disapprove of the behaviour, not the child...

@SantaFrontPaws

On the thread which I was on and deleted (as we're quite a few people) lots of people did report the OP as it was clearly a piss take. S/he was having a go at everyone and being rude, ignorant and some posters were really pouring our their hearts online in the hope of helping her/him out. The OP wasn't deleted but the thread eventually did go 'puf'.

Which thread, SantaFrontPaws?

@EverlongLovesHerChristmasRobin

God I'm almost laughing. I called someone a disgrace and it warrants being deleted. I've seen a million times worse left to stand.

Maybe so. But we can only act on what's reported to us. And this thread has been.

We hope you'll understand that, once we've been alerted to a thread, we can't overlook a post that breaks our rules, however much we might understand the feelings that triggered it.

It was quite a while ago... Someone supposedly pregnant by a man in prison and being locked in her bedroom by her religious mum who didn't know she was pregnant. Written by someone who seemed to be older/more educated than Vicky Pollard who s/he appeared to be channeling. It was very obviously a wind up but some people were so opening their hearts about lost children, family break ups and miscarriage.

In fairness, Everlong, some of your posts have been quite personal.

On the subject of the thread, I think what the djs did was really really stupid and thoughtless. But that's what they're guilty of: stupidity and thoughtlessness, not deliberate malice and spite. They deserved a good kick up the arse for their behaviour; but to have to live, for the rest of their lives, with the knowledge that they may unsuspectingly have pushed someone over the edge and been in anyway responsible for their suicide, is a very harsh penalty to pay for an irresponsible prank that has gone so tragically wrong. I don't condone what they did but I do feel sorry for them. They sounded distraught on the radio this morning. I think you can have empathy for both the nurse and the djs in this situation. It's just a horrible horrible tragedy that wasn't deliberately caused by anyone.

In all fairness jeanette I was provoked.

Galaxy, I thought your earlier post was a good place to end this thread, and it's unfortuante that it's continued. However, I agree with this> The one area where i do feel slightly sorry for the DJs is that their station is letting them be the public face of this and hiding in their own anonymity.

I've just watched bits of the interview with the 2 DJs on Sky News, and they are being hung out to dry by those who were part of the 'team' who made the decision to broadcast the call. The station has claimed that they tried to contact the staff who took the call/spoke to the DJs 'on several occasions' before they broadcast the call, as they are coming in for justified criticism of failing to seek permission even though they aren't legally compelled to do so as the call was to the UK.

This is what has been said > Rhys Holleran - head of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM - said he was satisfied that the appropriate checks were carried out before the pre-recorded segment was broadcast.

"It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," he told Fairfax Radio, an Australian broadcaster.

"We rang them up to discuss what we had recorded ... we attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions ... we wanted to speak to them about it."

The hospital have responded by saying> "Following the hoax call, the radio station did not speak to anyone in the hospital's senior management or anyone at the company who handles our media enquiries," a hospital spokesman said.

The boss/management/producers are leaving the DJs to take the brunt of 'blame' here, for decisions their position did not give them the power to make. They have shown their regret and remorse over what has happened, and the interview is quite distressing to watch as they are cleary very affected by all of this - and yet the boss is trying to wriggle out of owing up to his company's decision to broadcast the call.

Having watched the interview (and I only saw a small part of it, not the whole thing) I think this has gone on long enough and should end now as the DJs have apologised (as I said earlier they should do), are clearly affected by what's happened, and it makes not sense to continue with the media furore not least because it continues to impact on the nurse's family/friends and their private grief.

MN I really think you`ve made a bad call on this one. Posts shouldnt always just be deleted because of something deemed a personal attack, what was Everlong meant to do/say?

Templeruns posts must have felt like a personal attack to her and Heifer and anyone else affected by the devestation of suicide.

I really feel that you should back Everlong and Heifer on this, anyone who knows what they`ve been though wants to protect them from provoking posts such as that. (sorry Everlong and Heifer, not trying to talk for you but I think many posters will be feeling the same)

So,in a scenario where Jacintha's children ever happened upon this thread, it would be ok for them to read that their mother wasn't giving them any thought when she killed herself, but it's not ok for them to read Ever's comment that in her opinion the poster who said that is a 'disgrace'.

I understand the need for the rules but the way this thread has turned out it means that the person who was causing most of the problems and made utterly vile comments just gets free licence to continue to do so. Because she stuck to the rules.

I appreciate you speaking up for me dreams thank you.

good points there and valid too.

Dreams cross post.
My loss was 25 years ago and so I was already an adult when my parent committed suicide. So I think that helped me to come to terms with it better than if I'd still been a child. I am devastated for Jacintha's children. They are young and at such a vulnerable age.
I can't speak for Ever, except to say that I cannot imagine the depth of her pain at losing a child this way.
But yes, for me, the posts did feel very personal.

So,in a scenario where Jacintha's children ever happened upon this thread, it would be ok for them to read that their mother wasn't giving them any thought when she killed herself, but it's not ok for them to read Ever's comment that in her opinion the poster who said that is a 'disgrace'. [QUOTE]

But you could say that about the DJs as well. A lot of people are rightly commenting on the fact that public calls for Jacintha to be sacked etc could have driven a vulnerable person over the edge.
But people are also making very harsh comments about the DJs, with no thought for the consequences of this 'angry mob' attack and how it could affect two people who behaved like idiots but did not set out to cause anyone's death.

Those children have the public loss of their mother by suicide.

Nothing at all like what the two dj's are going through. They will get up from this. Jacintha's children won't.

Don't insult them by comparing them with those two.

The development about contacting the hospital on 5 occasions and then still deciding to go ahead with the broadcast interested me too.

If you go to that much effort to try and contact someone - even if you are not legally obliged to - you certainly can see the ethically rocky ground you are on.

And in truth, the hospital are perfectly right in many respects not to waste time on responding to something regarding a prank call even if the radio station did try and contact a senior member of management or their media centre. Precisely because they are a hospital and prank calls which are deliberately timewasting not the top priority of management. Not to mention the fact that people who work in hospitals have a tendency to be busy and not always at the end of a telephone. (And if they had concerns about the security at the hospital then I'm sure they could have thought of others to contact over the issue without broadcasting first)

Trying to pass the blame back to the hospital on this one and abdicate some of the responsibility, is quite sickening in my mind. If you can't get it past the right channels don't broadcast it.

Its that side of things and the inability to properly take responsibility and instead continue to say "no one could have forseen this outcome" when there was plenty that they did see and actively did consider whilst making this decision that annoys me.

I've tried and tried to feel some degree of sympathy for the 2 DJ's, but I just CAN'T. Sorry. What they did was morally wrong and reprehensible, particularly in the light of Leveson, everything that was unveiled about the media and their ways of getting information THAT THEY ARE NOT PRIVY TO. How is this any different? I've said it before, they are wholly responsible and the employers should pay a whacking great sum of money to both the nurse's family and to the hospital too.

This has really spiralled away from what I intended which was about empathy and compassion for both sides...