The Princess Kate crank call fallout

[Bill O'Neill]

On 12/10/2012 10:57 AM, Kevin Vahey wrote:
> The 2 DJ's in question were terminated today which seems harsh as the call
> was looked at by station management before it went on the air.
>
> Prank calls have been around forever. Don Imus was doing them in the 60's
> and made a record album out of it.<snip>
>
> Obviously nobody could see the suicide of the nurse ahead of time.
>
> Your thoughts?

Past practices are generally questioned once they hit a brick wall. And 
they have. Had one of Imus' former foils killed themselves, presumably 
resulting from an interaction with his program, and it went public back 
in the day then it may have had an impact on at least how Imus chose to 
entertain moving forward. Perhaps. But it didn't work out that way.

The entire industry is intended to first, make a profit, and second, to 
entertain by virtue of their presumed missions. People dying as a result 
of humiliation secondary to unsolicited public exposure is not funny. At 
least not quite yet. But we're getting there. Let's hang on. By the time 
our grandchildren are pausing their personal audio devices to examine a 
radio perhaps the only thing that will keep them tuned in will be 
interpersonal displays such as these.

Bill O'Neill