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2DAY FM presenters speak out

2DAY FM Presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian have spoken to both A Current Affair and Today Tonight.

2DAY FM Presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian have spoken out in response to the royal prank that has backfired and attracted global headlines.

They will appear on both A Current Affair and Today Tonight.

2DAY FM radio presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian break their silence in a raw and emotional interview with A Current Affair’s Tracy Grimshaw. Greig and Christian sat down with Grimshaw early this afternoon and recorded their first interview since making the tragic hoax call to London’s King Edward VII Hospital. A Current Affair will play the full and uncut version of their interview tonight.

Tracy Grimshaw has tweeted, “Let me say clearly that our interview with the 2Day FM hosts for tonight’s A Current Affair was NOT paid for. Neither asked nor offered.”

6:30pm tonight on Nine.

A Today Tonight release says, “Sitting down with Today Tonight’s Clare Brady this afternoon, Greig and Christian respond to the worldwide debate raging over the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha who was at the centre of the Royal hoax call to London’s King Edward VII Hospital last week.”

Today Tonight  airs 6.30pm on Seven.

Meanwhile Nine News also weighs in with an online discussion:

It’s the story that has sent social media into overdrive. Tonight, we discuss your questions and reactions to the 2DayFM royal radio prank controversy LIVE in a #9STREAM panel debate.

Following news a nurse had committed suicide over the prank call, 2DayFM presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian have faced death threats and the show’s sponsors have been bombarded with abuse.

Is this reaction fair? Are the presenters to blame? Has social media created a lynch-mob mentality?

Panel includes:
A Current Affair host, Tracy Grimshaw.
She spoke with Michael and Mel today and will tell us how she found them and what state they’re in.

Former 2-DayFM breakfast host, Wendy Harmer.
Wendy was part of the Number 1 breakfast show for 11 years and during that time she made her fair share of prank calls.

Our social media experts will examine how twitter and facebook have changed the conversation. Has a lynch mob mentality developed?
Mumbrella and Encore Editor-in-Chief, Tim Burrowes
FORBES top 50 Social Media Influencers, Laurel Papworth

You can join the conversation using the hashtag #9STREAM on Twitter and www.facebook.com/9News and watch the video here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2012/12/10/10/56/watch-live-2dayfm-prank-controversy-panel-debate

7.30pm NSW/VIC/TAS
6.30pm QLD
7.00pm SA
6.00pm NT
4.30pm WA

Lifeline 13 11 14
Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

27 Responses

  1. @ jezza the first original one “…..lets just keep this simple, if a prank phone call had not been made and then broadcast, Jacintha Saldanha would not be dead.”

    Isn’t that kind of a simplistic view? Everything that happens in the world is preceded by some other event. We can’t just stop living for fear of unwittingly causing something negative to happen. For example if I take my dog for a walk and he’s hit by a car, you could say “if only I had never crossed the road, my dog wouldn’t be injured.” It’s technically true but it doesn’t automatically mean that I shouldn’t have taken my dog for a walk. It’s not that simple. It becomes a question of predicting when bad outcomes are possible and/or likely, and altering your behavior to minimise the risk.

    Whether you think the radio station should have been able to foresee that a member of the public would react so badly to receiving the call that she would feel unable to continue living is another question. Given how few prank calls up to this point have caused the suicide of those involved (in that I include prank shows such as Candid Camera), it seems like predicting that outcome would be fairly difficult.

    This is a pretty good article on the subject, IMO

    nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/the-jokes-on-whom.html

  2. While I don’t doubt the two presenters feel remorse, to be employed and not take an interest in anything other than your own role/department within a company of any kind seems slightly immature and naive. They simply seemed to absolve themselves of any responsibility nor allow themselves to reach beyond their “processes” or “We never meant…” response. I was expecting them to lay it on the line and actually indicate the “processes” that they use and show more than a deer caught in headlights act.

    If you have no idea of what those processes are and wish to play the puppet role in the midst of controversy – albeit from a radio station that is no stranger to media controversy – then you really need to take a reality check or get wise.

    While I do feel for them, my sympathy was greatly diminished by their overall “play dumb” or worse still…inability to know the workings of their other departments and what they actually do. They lost me when they said they had no idea what happens to the content…they just give it to “someone”.

    Unacceptable really.

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