I would like to start by making the point that I do commend former Premier of Victoria Jeff Kennett's public support of the two young 2Day Radio FM broadcasters, Michael Christian and Mel Greig aka MC and Mel, who made the prank calls to London's King Edward VII Hospital -posing as the Queen and Prince Charles - that led to the suspected suicide of the Indian nurse who took their calls and passed them on to another nurse to report on the health of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge.
Speaking as the Chairman of Beyond Blue, the organisation that works to support youth mental health and wellbeing, Jeff Kennet eloquently put the case for the 2Day FM presenters, that they had no idea that their harmless prank would lead to such a tragic consequence.
Undoubtedly this is true. Even though, and albeit they may have contravened the NSW Radio Broadcasting Code that prohibits broadcasting private conversations without consent- the two young radio presenters were not to know that their actions were to lead to the suicide of the victim of their prank call.
It is highly unfortunate for all concerned that this was the result. Most sympathy should be with the family of the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, 46, who apparently according to media reports so far appears to have suicided out of a deep sense of shame, she was it seems also held accountable to some extent by her employers, as reported in the international media.
She was a mother of two children, and by all accounts deeply dedicated to her vocational calling as a nurse.
According to the reports of a nursing colleague and friend she was a devout catholic and the two of them prayed together for their patients to get better.
In comparison, when it comes to professional duty, the actions of the young Australian radio presenters, preoccupied with their own ambitious advancement in the fickle media world seem appalling abrasive and shallow.
Yet what we should understand, is that this reflects on the culture of Australian talk back radio media and the superficiality of the cult of media personality in Sydney.
We should not hold the two young radio presenters directly responsible or wholly responsible, as their "prank" show was pre-recorded and approved by the management of 2Day FM.
The radio presenters were no doubt hired for their record of stirring up controversy and thereby through this sensationalised and senseless tactic of making themselves annoying to draw attention to themselves,
were considered by the radio station managers to be worthy of employment on those grounds.
What this incident should do, is provoke a major reform of the superficial and meaningless actions of talkback radio hosts in Australia - that have been encouraged and supported and employed by radio stations such as 2Day FM and 2GB. When the presenters move into the international world of communications they are giving the nation a very bad reputation in the rest of the world for their attention-grabbing tactics that make Australians look far more superficial than we are- or would hope to be seen in the rest of the world.
Now is the time to grow up and start to become more responsible in how we present and reflect ourselves in the global and local media.
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