Australian media urge end to blame game in nurse tragedy

The last line says it all: "The prank call was pre-recorded and vetted by lawyers before being broadcast to listeners in Sydney." Deemed safe and acceptable by the worst people of all - lawyers.

Don't censor comedy ever.

Don't censor comedy ever.

Comedy is no more exempt the laws of decency and good judgement than anything else. And I don't see how you can window dress this any way other than exactly that.

Moron radio appealing to the lowest common denominator has paid the price for it's inability to make a balanced judgement call about what constitutes 'comedy'.

I have to admit that it is a bit early to judge at this stage. However, was the poor woman bullied and ridiculed by her colleagues over her mistake? Was she admonished by her superiors? What I mean to say is, are the DJ's solely the cause of this terrible incident or were there other factors that fed into it?

i'm an Aussie. I understand the Aussie sense of humour.

There was NEVER going to be anything remotely funny about trying to disturb Will and Kate while she was IN HOSPITAL due to suffering.....

.......the fact that this poor nurse took the responsibiltiy of her job this strongly can be ENTIRELY attributed back to these idiots trying to make their living from taking cheap cracks at the actual lives of others, to try to gain fame/notoriety for themselves.

Freedom of the press........and the duty to protect the freedom of HONEST people who have done no wrong.

Claiming the excuse of 'comedy' has NO value........ like racist gags.....it was NEVER going to be funny to anyone.

Very Poor.

" hysterical finger-pointing”.

" was the poor woman bullied and ridiculed by her colleagues over her mistake? Was she admonished by her superiors?"

" Comedy is no more exempt the laws of decency and good judgement than anything else."

IMO, this was a prank call that was unexpectedly forwarded, the person who first received it likely grilled over it, either by her supervisors and/or media, who then was reasonably extremely distressed and then could see no remedy but end her own life. It became a terrible tragedy. And the media has twisted it like a rubber band.

One of the columnists wrote "was there malice in this call?" Well, I don't know. Just how harmless and non-malicious is the act of publicly attempting to prank a sick, pregnant, hospitalized woman?

Idiots. No sympathy here.

"Just how harmless and non-malicious is the act of publicly attempting to prank a sick, pregnant, hospitalized woman?"

Methinks your definition of "malice" and the definition the rest of the world uses is vastly different. Out of your melodramatic rant above, only one part is true: Kate Middleton is indeed pregnant. She's not sick. She hasn't contracted some horrid flesh-eating parasite. She isn't faced with but three months to live. She's pregnant. By most estimations, that's a good thing. And she's carrying the royal heirs to boot. How awesome is that?

Speaking of which, being part of the royal family has many perquisites, including being hospitalized for morning sickness, a luxury that the rest of us plebes can only dream of.

Pray tell what are the psychological or physically scarring ramifications of a pregnant woman accepting a phone call from an Aussie radio personality pretending (poorly) to be her grandmother? Please do tell.

This "outrage" has long since ballooned into sheer idiocy. This phone call didn't cause Ms. Saldanha to kill herself. Quite honestly, it's an insult to her memory to suggest that an accomplished medical professional was that vapid and petty, and it's an insult to those estimated tens of millions of people around the globe who struggle with mental health issues and/or the kinds of real pressures that can cause them to consider taking their own lives on a daily basis.

I agree with Mr. Fitzsimons wholeheartedly: Get a grip.

Kate Middleton is a paparazzi magnet. Why didn't the hospital or the royal family assign minders to filter calls? It seems odd that the only people on duty were two nurses. The people responsible for that situation are more to blame then the Australian DJs. They were just doing their job: being obnoxious idiots.

Media exposure can be very upsetting for people who aren't used to it. I know this from personal experience. Media people care about nothing but getting good stories so they can sell advertising. However, I find it difficult to see that as the sole, direct cause of a suicide by an educated woman and mother of two children.

This case has echoes of the film "FIsher King," in which an arrogant radio shock jock triggers a mass killing. But is it ever really valid to blame our actions on the words of others?

“Was there malice in this call? Please point it out." Does there need to be malice? No, I don't think there was any.

Poor judgement of a staggering proportions? Yes. At many stages. The original call by the DJs. What were they thinking? Surely they didn't expect to get through. They should've ended the call before they started getting any confidential details.

Approval by lawywers and management to broadcast. This wasn't an unexpected happening during a live broadcast. People calmly took this decision to run the call, without any consent.

And the sad decision by the nurse to end her own life, for something that surely would have blown over in time. Poor kids now left without a mom.

Mainly I blame the radio stations management and lawyers. They had time to deliberate.

People, really. A prank call to a hospital? A place where sick, vulnerable people go to get well, and where highly specialized workers make life or death decisions on a daily basis? How, pray tell, is a prank call to a hospital ever, ever, ever going to be regarded as "funny" or "harmless?

I suppose some of you think prank ambulance call-outs are funny, too. Why don't you go and make one now and have a good laugh about it with your friends later on?

So disappointed to read some of these comments, just so disappointed.

And the canned, melodramatic, wholly contrived moral outrage continues unabated.

You want to talk about utter disappointment?