Posted on 12/07/2012 1:17:56 PM PST by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Once upon a time I was an aspiring media professional. My very first foray into the business was as summer newspaper intern with The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Near the end of my internship, I was given an assignment that haunts me to this very day.
I was told to go out to a Cleveland suburb where a shooter was reportedly spraying bullets in a residential neighborhood.
When I arrived at scene, police had cordoned off the block where the shooter – a troubled 17 year-old kid – was holed up in his house. After what seemed like hours, but probably were more like minutes, a SWAT team stormed the house.
I expected an exchange of gunfire, but there was none. Then paramedics were summoned to the house, where they removed the lifeless body of the kid, who, it turned out, had turned the gun on himself.
It shook me to my very core. Not the least because the deceased was only two years younger than I was.
But as I learned in J-school, I had to get to story; I had to interview witnesses.
So I approached the young man’s family, which had huddled behind the police cordon, along with neighbors that had been evacuated.
They were near hysterical. But, still, I asked them if they had anything to say to the newspaper.
They looked right through me. And I didn’t blame them. Because I intruded upon them at a time when they should have been left alone with their grief.
I was reminded of that experience when heard the tragic story of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who worked at King Edward VII Hospital in London, where expected mum Kate Middleton was treated this week.
Jacintha was so traumatized by a hoax played on her by two oh-so-clever Australian radio jocks – who pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles calling for Kate – that she killed herself yesterday.
My heart breaks for the deceased nurse and her family.
The tragedy confirms to me what I have learned during a media career of more than two decades: Many of those who work in print, digital, radio and television are closer to the prince of this world than to Christ.
Their God-lessness informs their approach to mass communication. If they can put something in print, or over the airwaves, that creates buzz, that attracts readers or listeners or viewers, they’re good to go with it.
Even if it causes a poor nurse so much despair, she finds her life no longer worth living.
Thank you, beandog. For a woman to kill herself over a silly phoney phone call is beyond the pale. She must have had serious issues prior - or her family beat her up so badly over her mistake that she decided to punish them.
The disc jockeys pulled a silly prank. I laughed at their bad imitations of the Queen and Prince Charles. Charles was making jokes about it before this suicide.
Did the hospital make her life a misery afterwards? Foolish, foolish girl!
the person who video taped in that case was found guilty.
the cyber bullies who targetted a classmate to suicide were convicted.
Don’t be so stupid. She was a grown woman - not a little girl. Who says she was “hated by everyone”? Prince Charles made jokes about it.
I heard the original phone call. That she fell for the ridiculously bad imitations of the Queen and Prince Charles does not speak well for her. I pity her suicide but it was completely unnecessary.
I know that they were, but they are not responsible for anyone’s suicide.
Only the person who commits suicide is respnisbile for suicide.
Her age is immaterial. Yes, she was the national butt of jokes. She was going to lose her job for giving out information. She was a national joke and about to be unemployed too because of that call.
It was totally malicious.
Where the hell do you get off saying “her life was over”? Maybe you think Brits still live under the thumb of royalty and worry about getting beheaded or drawn and quartered but I assure you that most Brits do not.
I’m angry at this girl’s suicide. Where were her family and friends? Where were her co-workers? She obviously had issues and now two prankster dj’s will have to live with this. Bah! Humbug!
the says otherwise.
(see also “fighting words”)
oops “the law says otherwise”
I suppose you are appalled by all the pranks Steve Allen pulled on “The Tonight Show”? Did “Candid Camera” offend your politically-correct sensibilities?
She was a foolish young girl who could have quickly lived down this embarrassment. Poor, silly girl.
As far as I know, the person convicted in the case of the gay guy jumping to his own death wa snot convicted of murder or suicide, nor should he have been as he did neither.
Certainly he should not have filmed his roomate and then posted those films, but his roomate’s decision to take his own life was exactly that, his decision.
This is what happens when people turn their backs on God, which our world is doing. The DJs were wrong, but they were just following the ways of this world, which are to act like a pack of wolves. They lied to those two nurses, but they didn’t see them as people, but just as tools. Even the coverage after the “prank” did the same. The victims were just the royal family, not those actually lied to. It’s sad, though, that more Christian and conservative leaders aren’t standing up and pointing this out, like more used to do, and saying that this is a consequence of liberalism, atheism and rejecting Christ.
It was her decision to kill herself, and wrong, but it was something that never should have been done to her. You can’t say that it wasn’t embarrassing, even humiliating, and showed her to fail in her job before the whole world. The British news is saying she felt lonely and confused after the prank and that her family in India wasn’t told about her part in it. And then the royal family is practically worshiped in the UK, and the whole world follows their every move, and these VIPs were in her hospital and under her care. Whatever the hospital and the royals say, there couldn’t have been any private good humor over what happened with it being a security breach.
I remember being in ninth grade and a couple of my friends played a joke on me and told me they’d flown across the country to go to the funeral of Jon-Erik Hexum, the actor who died young in a set accident. They only told a couple of other people that I fell for their story, but I felt humiliated the few times they kidded me about it. Being duped is a humiliation, and when it concerns your job, protecting people’s privacy, and a royal family while the world is watching, there is no guarantee that someone isn’t going to be traumatized by that.
Well said, Faith Presses On.
One of Aesop's fables tells of a crow that comes across a partially filled pitcher. The crow can't reach the water with his beak, so he collects pebbles and drops them in until it raises the water level so that he can reach it. No single pebble made it possible for the crow to drink, but rather the accumulation of many pebbles.
A few years back, my folks told me that a kid I'd gone to school with from first grade through 12th had killed himself. He had never been a "popular" kid, he was kind of portly and not in the least athletically inclined. He got picked on a lot, and much to my shame and regret, I participated in that to a certain degree in elementary school until one time my parents found out and drove me to his house to apologize.
In any case, I left home and he stayed in our hometown where he reported and wrote for the local paper. I never saw him after HS graduation, and never even really thought about him until about 20 years later when I was speaking with my parents over the phone and they told me that he had killed himself.
I knew I wasn't "responsible," and that he had made the decision all by himself, but I couldn't help but wonder if my words and actions many years back hadn't been one of those "pebbles" that, along with many others, somehow contributed to his reaching the point where he felt killing himself was his best decision.
The DJ's in this story may or may not be held legally responsible for the nurse's death, but on a moral plane, I would submit that they have at least a small degree of culpability.
That’s an apt analogy, Joe. In the moral universe, the DJs are at least partially culpable for the nurse’s death.
We all have our pebbles, Joe.
It’s what we decide to do with them.
In 8th and 9th grade, I was mercilessly bullied in high school. I was also portly at the time.
All day, every day, and I also saw this happen to others.
One person in particular drove it. He sat behind me in a number of classes and said cruel things all day long.
One day, he said one thing to many, so I turned around and punched him right in his face nice and hard in front of everyone.
He said that I was dead after school. Needless to say, I am still alive, and I was never bullied again.
I saw him in a bathroom in a French Quarter bar a number of years later. By this time I had grown to my adult size. I don’t think he wanted any part of me. He said Hi Chris how you doing man? I said fine Pat, and walked on.
Life gives us all pebbles. You can either carry them, or you can’t.
I know that for a fact.
I also know for a fact that some people deal with and manage thieir "pebbles" better than others.
I also know for a fact that some people who never learn to deal with them or get rid of them tend to carry around a lot more of them than others.
I also know for a fact that neither I, nor anybody else can really say how many more any person can deal with on any given day.
Which is why I suggest that maliciously dropping a pebble into another person's "pitcher," just to see how they react is never the right thing to do. I'm not talking about a drill sergeant who raises the stress level for the benefit of his trainees, or a demanding professor that puts an ill prepared student on the spot, or an employer that has to make a hard choice and lay somebody off...those all increase a person's stress and may feel like a bomb going off in the person's life at the time, but there is no malicious intent. I'm talking about simple unbridled meanness for the sake of hurting or humiliating another person. When you get right down to it, there's a touch of sadism involved there that's not much different than ripping the wings off a butterfly.
If I get into an argument with someone, let’s say because I am having a bad day, this person does something stupid in front of me, I call them out for it, tell them what for and then that person goes home and kills themselves, am I somehow responsible for their action?
Am I morally culpable for their killing of themselves?
I’m sorry, Joe, but this world is a hard place. People are not always nice. In fact sometimes they are evil. Other times, they simply refuse to take responsibility for what they decide to do, and others refuse to assign responsibilty to those whom have done.
If we start treading down the road that we are responsible for the actions others take based upon how we interacted with that person, or based upon how others interacted with that person, then we simply go further down the road of our own insanity, which is exactly what I expect that man will do.
It goes to intent. If you have a coworker, employee, friend, or even a complete stranger that does something stupid, and you "call them out," I would suggest that ultimately, your actions are not malicious, but rather have that person's betterment or safety at their core. Of course some people are more tactful and skilled about it than others, but even if you cuss somebody out for running a red light, you're ultimately pointing out to them that they violated an agreed upon rule of the road and that their persistance in doing so endangers others and themselves. Of course you may do so in a series of foul expletives, but at its base, it's actually a civilizing action since the other person violated common sense, convention and societal norms of behavior. That's not the malicious intent to which I am speaking; you're actually in a sense, giving that person advice to improve their behavior.
Now, if you walk up to a random person in a mall and start berating them just to make them feel small and embarass them and they then go and kill their self, you may not have any legal culpability, but if indeed that was the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak, that your belittling of the person was just the latest in a long string of events unknown to even you, then yes, you have at least a small degree of moral culpability.
Ultimately we are all accountable for our own actions, but to say that others don't influence our behavior is nonsense.
Suppose you take a new job on the assembly line at the widget factory. Your trainer shows you how to do your assigned task incorrectly. You work diligently all day doing exactly what you were instructed to do. At the end of the day, the production supervisor tears you a new A-hole because you screwed up every part you worked on that day.
Is the trainer not at least partially culpable?
Similarly, in moral matters, while children who grow up having a strong sense of values instilled in them may go off the rails of their own volition, those that retain those values often act as they do as the result of their parentage.
Let me ask you this...if you were going on vacation for two weeks and needed somebody to watch your house, and you knew absolutely nothing about the two candidates you had to choose from apart from the fact that one was raised in a rigorous Christian household with strong values, and the other was raised by a couple felons, who do you select? With no further information would you not operate on the assumption that the parents and environment of the candidates' respective upbringing most likely had some influence on their potential behavior and demeanor?
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