2DAY scandal: welcome to "the process"

The two radio presenters at the heart of the 2DAY scandal involving prank calls and a nurse's suicide have blamed something called "the process".

Tearfully, they proclaimed that they just do this stuff, record it and then send it off  to the process. They are unaware of who or what is involved in the process.

They just know that the process is really to blame, if indeed, as they argue, anyone can fairly be held accountable for the unforseeable tragic consequences of the sort of prank call that radio stations are doing all day every day all around the world.

There you have their defence. It boils down to three key messages much loved by school aged children:

1. Everyone does it.

2. We didn't mean it to happen.

3. It's not really our fault because no-one told us not to do it.

These messages are consistent with the approach adopted by the company in its public communications in recent days.

Part of growing up is realising that we must take responsibility for our actions whether or not everyone does it and whether or not we meant something awful to happen.

But back to "the process".

Their denial of any knowledge of the process is an indictment of station management.

Every company has a responsibility to make sure its staff understand the ethical and legal contexts in which they operate. 

The ignorance of these two presenters means the management has some questions to answer and some work to do.

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Comments

[Benjamin Haslem]

Trev,
I loved the excuse: "The call was never meant to get through; we were supposed to get hung up on".
Um. But it did get through. And it was broadcast.
Mark Latham was instructive on this last night on PM Live when he said (to paraphrase): Let's forget about the fact a nurse took her own life, which of itself is horrible. When it's all stripped back, this was a pair of DJs who, under false pretenses, phoned a hospital to obtain and broadcast the private medical details of an ill and pregnant woman. Irrespective of who that woman was, it was a gross invasion of her privacy. Spot on.