Katie Beswick (@ElfinKate) offers her opinion on the 2day FM ‘pranksters’: she asks when the time is ripe for ‘sorry’, and tells you how much healing a sorry can really do.
Has everything it’s possible to say about the 2day fm scandal already been said? Probably, but that’s never stopped me expressing a point of view before. So, when editor-at-large – Man With An Opinion Phil Kirby – announced over twitter that those outraged by the Royal Hoax and its possible connection with the subsequent suicide of a nurse ought to ‘grow up,’ my gut response, as ever on twitter, was, ‘NO! You are many subtle shades of wrong!’
I’ve never found the deliberate humiliation of others very funny. That’s not because I’m a nice person – it’s just that boisterous pranks that are only about a moment of superficial hilarity don’t really tickle my funny bones. Hence why I always switched to ITV during the ‘gotcha’ section of Noel’s House Party. Of course, just because I don’t find something funny, that’s no reason to ban it outright (otherwise things that would be banned include: The Simpsons, Outnumbered, Charlie Chaplin, Monty Python and knock-knock jokes). One’s sense of humour is a personal and subjective thing. So, while the whole Royal Hoax was more irritating than lol to me, I’m not calling for the end of radio pranks. But I’ll admit that something about the circumstances of the whole thing makes me feel disturbed, beyond what would be reasonable for your common or garden variety sense of humour failure. I think it’s got something to do with the word ‘sorry’. Let me explain why:
There is a certain culture in various corporate systems which centres on avoiding responsibility. It is epitomised by that pervasive phrase: ‘not my problem’, tossed around by ‘customer service’ staff at shops, train stations and call centres when some company inadequacy has caused you to sound off about an inconvenience. In times of corporate oversight everybody from the CEO to the shop floor assistant expediently forgets that there’s (probably) such thing as cause and effect, and stares at avoidable but unexpected consequences of their actions going: ‘nothing to do with me. I didn’t mean for our terrible health and safety procedures to cause a massive oil spill in the Gulf. I’m just the Managing Director! Speak to that bloke in finance who shrank our budget for screws.’
Although presenters Mel Grieg and Michael Christan have said sorry for their involvement in a hoax call to the Royal bedside, they’ve also, according to recent reports, been pretty vocal about the fact that they were not to blame. And everybody knows that a person who says, ‘sorry’ followed by, ‘but don’t blame me,’ is not really sorry at all. I’m going to suggest that the grown up, responsible thing to do when something you thought was brilliant backfires and the rest of the word goes ‘er…you were a bit out of order there, mate,’ is to take a big long look at yourself, and then apologise.
You see, I’m willing to concede that it’s not the presenters’, or even the radio station’s, fault if it turns out Jacintha Saldanaha’s suspected suicide was a result of their daftness. It wasn’t murder- a premeditated act of outright cruelty. They don’t deserve to be lynched, or even to lose their jobs. They do deserve to feel a little bit bad, for an appropriate period of time – because, maybe it was their fault, in a less direct way. Actions have consequences. If I jumped out from behind the door to scare my grandmother and she had a heart attack, I’m pretty sure I’d be a little bit to blame. Even if her underlying angina was the major contributor.
Similarly, everyone involved in this daft prank – from the radio station bosses who sanctioned the call, to the disgusting British media who dramatised the whole thing to the point where those involved felt publically exposed (statutory underpinning of press regulation anyone?) – is little bit to blame for the consequences of the prank and it’s sensationalised dissemination. And now they need to do the decent thing: just say sorry and suck it up. Then go away somewhere quiet until the rest of the world is over it.
If you or the corporation you work for did something stupid and there were unfortunate and unforeseen consequences, apologise. No, it wasn’t intended – but you do bear some responsibility; even if only because you blindly carried out your employer’s orders without thinking it through. That’s gonna hurt, as being in the wrong inevitably does. Learn from the pain, and learn quietly. Appearing on TV sobbing as though you are the victim of some terrible injustice just sensationalises the whole ridiculous thing further. And all this public drama might well lead to further tragedies as a result of the whole pranking mess.
Sorry is a healing word, used well it’s like an ointment applied to scalded skin. Uttering the words ‘I’m sorry’, without justification or self-pity, and really meaning them – that’s a moment of calm in a tsunami of sadness. Sorry is when you admit that you’ve done wrong, and start to forgive yourself, piece by piece, until you can finally control the guilt that consumes you and hold your head high in the world again.
It’s the hardest word, if you say it properly. But it’s often the right one.
*Image courtesy of bigjom at freedigitalphotos.net
Hi Katie. Agree about ‘prank’ jokes. Not my thing either but it doesn’t make it wrong just naff. And I agree about the simple but effective use of just saying sorry.
But I was concerned that it was the radio company not the DJs who jumped straight to the ‘we didn’t break the law’ argument when all it required was deep sympathy for Jacintha and her family.
And the British Leveson-avoiding media have to face the fact that they have a lot of responsibility. It was them acting all outraged that moved this prank from daft to traumatic, when they started shouting about protecting their highnesses from the outside world.
So I actually ending up feeling terrible for the DJs themselves who were only doing what the excuse-for-a-comedian Keith Lemon and folk like that do every day, and ended up offering themselves up for a public beating and being placed on suicide watch themselves.
And I don’t think sorry need mean culpability, just sadness for someone’s else position. So maybe instead of making it about individuals, the British and Australian media could agree that a little less corporate blame-giving and a little more empathy would be better all round.
Yes, empathy seems to have been what was missing from this whole affair. And the DJs do seem to have been scapegoats for the unfortunate results of the prank. I also wonder how empathetic the hospital/Royal security were towards the nurses. I’m hoping lessons will be learned all round – but remain cyncial.
How can you call the British media ‘Leveson-avoiding’ when they seem to lack the collective guts to stand up to the threat of state regulation of the press?
I don’t think it was the DJs ‘fault’ at all. I’m not a fan of prank calls, but how on earth were they to know they’d end up speaking to someone with such clearly fragile mental health? It was clearly a trigger, but who’s to say it couldn’t have been something else if not that? I also think the DJs came across as very genuinely sorry and are clearly in shock. So I’m not sure that I agree that there’s been a lack of sincere apology.
The narrative here has been led by the British media, who have been very quick to play the blame game. That is, of course, very convenient for the press to ‘blame’ the DJs because it allows them to ignore the part they may have played in piling the pressure on the woman in question.
The bottom line is that none of us know what specifically led to the suicide, but sadly it doesn’t stop us from quickly apportioning blame.
It is worth remembering that a hospital is a serious workplace and the staff is, as anyone with a brain cell should be aware, under massive pressure. Having worked in care services I know how restricted you are by legalities and procedure, and how fearful you are of making a tiny mistake that might have huge consequences for your career. Which is why I left that line of work. Professional journalists, whether they are in serious news or entertainment, ought to be mindful of such circumstances. Unfortunately as self regulation of the press has failed and the government seem to be against underpinning press regulation in law, the lack of procedure in their own workplace appears to make some journalists unaware of the pressures other professionals face in theirs.
I have to say it strikes me as irresponsible in the extreme to think that calling a hospital and pranking the staff there is appropriate and might not have unintended consequences. That’s why I compared the phone hoax to jumping out from behind a door on an elderly person – they (by whom I mean the radio station rather than the DJs) thought it would be funny, but they underestimated the condition of the person they pranked, which was not entirely unforeseeable (as did the media who blew the whole thing out of proportion). So yes, I would argue that there is an element of blame to be placed on the broadcasting professionals (we aren’t talking about kids having a laugh here) who sanctioned and carried out the call. That’s what taking responsibility for your actions is about – conceding that what you did was daft when avoidable tragedies result.
I’m not asking for their blood here, only an acknowledgement from all involved that their actions were ill conceived; as far as I can tell, there is a lot of ‘but we couldn’t have known!’It was only a laugh’ going on. Of course they weren’t to know a hoax would have those terrible consequences, and I’m sure they feel terrible – but there was a lack of professional respect for hospital staff and reasonable foresight here. The way the DJs have paraded their apologies and tears in front of a baying press is distasteful, smacks of self-preservation instinct, and dilutes the sincerity of the apology in my opinion. I think the press at large needs to take a moment to reflect on its behaviour (as if!) and then STFU.
Thanks for the response. Your point about the pressures that health professionals are under is a very, very good one, and I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the stunt wasn’t a very ill-considered one. I just feel very uncomfortable with any speculation as to why someone did something, when we don’t know anything about their pre-existing mental health or any of the other pressures or issues in their life.
I didn’t read the DJs are ‘parading’ their apologies. It seemed to me that they were dragged back into an interview for which they were clearly not mentally prepared – and I don’t think anyone can doubt that they grasped the enormity of what had happened, inadvertently or otherwise. But as you say, that is the problem with the press at large. Your last sentence says it all: Amen to that. I’m not convinced that the post-Leveson universe is going to be that different to the one that went before.
Thanks – yes I agree that speculation as to why someone did something is perhaps uncomfortable, and the truth is we will probably never know.
I hope the DJs aren’t the next victims of a press witch hunt. I think an understated sorry is always the best, but yes, perhaps they weren’t given the option to do that.
Fingers crossed Leveson has some impact.