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The two Australian radio personalities who made the prank phone call to a British hospital caring for the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge made tearful apologies Monday for making the call, which may have led to the suicide of a nurse who spoke to the pair.

Mel Greig and Michael Christian, both crying at times, told two Australian television shows Monday that their thoughts are with the family of Jacintha Saldanha, the 46-year-old nurse who put the prank call through to the ward where the duchess was.

"I'm very sorry and saddened for the family, and I can't imagine what they've been going through," Greig said on the program "Today Tonight."

Greig and Christian said they never expected the prank call to be successful.

Posing as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, the pair said they thought their bad accents would give them away and whoever answered the phone at the hospital would hang up on them.

"We wanted to be hung up on with our silly voices," Greig said.

"We assumed that we'd be hung up on, and that would be that," Christian said.

But they were put through to the duchess's ward and given some details of her medical condition.

"It was never meant to go that far. It was meant to be a silly little prank that so many people have done before," Greig said

"If we played any involvement in her death, then we're very sorry for that," said Greig, who described how she found out about Saldana's apparent suicide.

"It's the worst phone call I've had in my life," she said, fighting tears.

"There's not a minute that goes by that we don't think about her family and what they must be going through, and the thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching," Greig said.

The pair have been taken off the air by their network, which has not said when they might return.

"I don't even want to think about going back on air, to be honest," Greig said.More at http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/10/world/asia/australia-radio-personalities
/index.html?hpt=hp_t1]
Apparently the show's been pulled, since then:

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An Australian radio network at the heart of a hoax targeting Prince William's pregnant wife canceled the show responsible for the prank on Monday, expressing deep regret for the death of a nurse who took a call from the DJs involved.

The two DJs "will not return to the airwaves until further notice," the statement from the network, Southern Cross Austereo, said. The company also suspended all prank calls, pulled advertising and ordered a comprehensive review of relevant policies and processes.More at http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/10/world/europe/uk-royal-hospital-death/ind
ex.html?hpt=hp_t1]
It's put a (no doubt temporary) spotlight on shock jocks. Fine with me, I hate them.

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Nurse death sparks outrage, casts glare on 'shock jocks'

2DayFM has a history of public humiliation. In 2009, a 14-year-old girl was tricked into acknowledging that she had been raped at the age of 12 -- only to be asked by a DJ: "Is that the only experience you've had?"

That led the Australian Communications and Media Authority to censure the station -- saying the broadcast did not meet standards of decency. The station said it had provided the teenager with counseling and vowed "to prevent anything similar from happening again."

But 2DayFM has been the subject of several inquiries since; and this year was told it "must not broadcast material that demeans or is likely to demean women or girls" as a condition of keeping its license.

That followed a broadcast in which a female journalist was called a derogatory term and told "to watch your mouth or I'll hunt you down" by DJ Kyle Sandilands. The incident provoked a campaign to persuade advertisers to boycott the show, but 2DayFM was not fined and Sandilands kept his job. He even interviewed Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in July.

After its latest prank, 2DayFM's website boasted about the "Biggest Royal Prank Ever," but in the UK, Daily Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon said it was "not so funny to hear two grown adults call up a hospital ward full of sick people to try to scam information about one of them."

Prank phone calls and other practical jokes have long been a form of entertainment on radio and television. Most of the time they are harmless enough: both sides get the joke. The TV series "Candid Camera" ran for years because the great majority of the people tricked by the show were prepared to sign away their dignity for a few minutes.

But pranks can go wrong.

Back in 2008, the BBC apologized to actor Andrew Sachs after two radio presenters -- Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross -- left a series of messages on his phone while on-air, including offensive references to his granddaughter. The second message apologized for the first -- but also suggested Sachs might kill himself because of the content of the previous message.

The two presenters were later suspended by the BBC, and a senior executive resigned. The corporation was also fined some $225,000 by the UK media regulator and its governing trust described the episode as a "deplorable intrusion with no editorial justification."

Brand moved on -- to a career in Hollywood. Veteran publicist Max Clifford told the Daily Telegraph soon after the incident that Brand's career would not be hurt.

"He's known to be controversial and, if anything, it will make him more popular amongst his fans, who will have thought this was hilarious," Clifford told the newspaper.

As Oscar Wilde once said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

In the 21st century, personal humiliation can quickly go viral thanks to the reach and appetite of both social and mainstream media. Within hours, the minor transgressions and innocent mistakes, the private behavior and anxieties of ordinary people can reach, or seem to reach, the ends of the earth. For a few, that exposure is quickly overwhelming.More at http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/07/world/europe/royal-hospital-death-ethics
/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.