What If They Told A Good Joke And Nobody Heard It

Michael Hedges December 17, 2012 Follow on Twitter

Nothing compares to a good joke. Even at the ragged edge of show business the needle moves when the audience laughs. And low-brow humor plays well, better still with a bit of social or geographic distance. Celebrities line up for this kind of attention, then moan about it. It’s their job. It’s so dreadful to be forgotten.

It all started when a young woman was rushed to hospital with a bad case of morning sickness. Not particularly newsworthy unless it is Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, wife of William, Duke of Cambridge and second in line to the British Throne. The wires were atattle and the twitteratti atwattle. Kate is preggers.

Shortly thereafter a radio show team in Australia, in search of the daily gag, decided to place a phone call to the hospital. The British Royal Family is of interest in Australia. It’s a colonial thing. The show hosts would pretend to be Queen Elisabeth, grandmother of Prince William, and Prince Charles, his father. Somebody else barked like a dog.

Their intention isn’t completely clear; the DJs expected to be hung-up on by hospital staff, they said. At the very least, they’d have a promo to use for a couple of days. But, phoning at 5:30 in the morning London time there was no receptionist at the hospital and a duty nurse picked up the phone. Thinking it was the Queen calling, or perhaps not hearing all that well at the early hour, she put the call through to another nurse who proceeded to give a few general details of Kate’s condition to a person thought to be the Queen.

Policy at the radio station – 2Day FM in Sydney – has the production team send the recording first to a supervisor or somebody, it isn’t clear, for vetting prior to broadcast. This particular station has had issues with on-air bits, a few causing problems with the Australian regulator. On the great scale of DJ prank calls, this did not ring the Howard Stern bell. It went on the air, followed by the requisite promo touting the big scoop. A phone prank by two celebrity BBC DJs several years ago, laced with obscenity, earned a brief suspension for one while the other removed to Hollywood.

All of this horrified the British tabloid press, tail still between its legs after revelations of phone hacking, police payoffs and other moral lapses. How could this happen? What about security for the Royal Family? Why didn’t we get there first?

Then the story took a turn to the unimaginably tragic. The duty nurse who took the phone call from those DJs and passed it on to another nurse was found dead, with the general supposition it was a suicide. Between the glee of Kate’s impending motherhood and the death of a respected health care worker passed but three days and millions of Tweets. Wrath was directed at those two DJs, the radio station’s visible persona.

The station’s owner – Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) – pulled the two DJs from their show. The company went into PR defense. Policies had been strictly followed, said the company president. Attempts were made to obtain permission to use the recordings before broadcast, inevitably questioned by hospital administrators. The company pulled all advertising, two major advertisers taking the lead, and suspended prank calls company-wide. The tearful DJs appeared on Australian television expressing shock and remorse, possibly realizing they had just experienced what ‘s commonly known as the career ender. Then money was offered the family of the deceased nurse, station would forego profits through the end of the year.

A coroner’s hearing in the UK revealed only that the 46 year-old nurse succumbed from hanging and three notes were found at the scene. While official details will not be released for several weeks, the ever-diligent UK tabloids reported one note referred to stress from hospital management over the phone prank (Daily Mail December 13). Hospital administrators maintained the nurse had been given their full support over the incident. The Royal Family expressed the same.

By the end of the week, as SCA’s share price tanked, Australia’s media regulator ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) said it would “expedite” an investigation focused on the station rather than the DJs. As in nearly every jurisdiction, a broadcast licensee takes full liability for station content. The big question remaining to be answered, say the wags, is the identity of the person who vetted the phone prank recording for broadcast. Meanwhile, SCA increased security for staff and company executives, some assigned safe-house protection and others bodyguards. An explicit death threat against one of the DJs has prompted a police investigation.

The tragedy of a suicide always prompts soul searching. Within that there comes the understandable yet regrettable urge to cast blame. Every psychologist knows it is a deeply personal act. This tangled episode, reaching from one side of the world to the other, will cost a few jobs, a bit of money and tarnished reputations. Then it will be forgotten for this is the age of Twitter and thoughts are processed in a blink and then they are gone.

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