I
found the news of the untimely and unnecessary death of Jacintha Saldanha
extremely upsetting and must admit to shedding quite a few tears. People can dumb down the act leading to Jacintha’s
death by calling it a ‘prank’ or a ‘stunt’ or by using neutral terms such as ‘tragic
event’, in order to avoid proportioning or accepting blame. But in doing so, they must also realise that people
are responsible for their actions. Nobody forced 2DayFM to make the telephone call. While the presenters were laughing and joking
on their video, Jacintha was entering a living hell.
Now
her children have lost their mother.
I refuse
to listen to several radio presenters because I have found their unsolicited telephone
calls to unsuspecting strangers to be a form of bullying. Others call it ‘fun’, but I call it ‘nasty’. There is no place for this kind of behaviour
in a modern society irrespective of whether or not it an attempt to ridicule a
person, or to extract confidential information.
Any such act is morally wrong.
I do
not accept the argument “the station hadn’t broken any laws” either. Bullying is a terrible thing, bullying comes
in many forms, and there are many examples where the victim has committed suicide. Manslaughter is a crime, obtaining confidential
information, whatever the method, is an invasion of privacy laws, obtaining a pecuniary
advantage is a crime. But Jacintha’s
death is not about criminalising the two presenters involved. I suspect that the worldwide disgust far
outweighs the outcome that they could suffer under any penal code.
The
publicity surrounding Jacintha’s death is a reminder that those who do stupid
things run the risk of being called to account when those stupid things go
badly wrong. Those who are responsible
must be held to account. They need to be
sacked, as does anyone else at the radio station or its parent company that was
involved or has moved to try and protect the company while losing sight of the
death of Jacintha. Play music and chat,
run competitions, invite guests onto the station, give the sports results, tell
us the news, talk about the weather, play more music, but remember that you
have no right in any form whatsoever to telephone anyone that you do not
know. And that folks is the bottom line
so stop being in denial and wise up. The
outcome was foreseeable, if not this time then at a point in time, as all
actions have a reaction.
