Two disc-jockeys on an Australian radio station called the hospital where the Duchess of Cornwall had been admitted, pretending to be the Queen and the P. of W., and managed to get through to a nurse who told them something about the young woman's condition.
Then the nurse who took the call committed suicide.
Everyone is shocked and dismayed. Of course, the death of the poor nurse is sad, and regrettable. And probably the prank phone call and the resulting notoriety caused it: I have known people in my life who, I am certain, would have been driven off their tracks had they been the subject of any public notice of any kind. Some people are just not capable of dealing with a lot of attention from strangers --that's one reason they don't go into politics.
But can we really pretend to be outraged by the behavior of radio announcers? Not, I suggest, if we have listened to many of them. Literally nothing is out of bounds for them these days, no matter how offensive, puerile, nonsensical, or just plain stupid and meaningless. The sort of stuff that occupies the airwaves, at least on talk radio, is literally no different than you can find in any video arcade or fast-food restaurant. And that includes the empty pauses, the stuttered phrases, the back-and-forth bickering and side conversations --talk radio is really just a race to the bottom, aimed at making the ordinary chap feel comfortable. That is especially true on local shows; but those local jocks have learned at the feet of the masters (we all know who I mean).
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