The Tragic Royal Affair- Five Lessons

I am going to weigh in on a topic that has Australians engaged in furious discussion today. It has some lessons for all of us.

A Sydney radio station 2DAY-FM made a prank call to the London's King Edward VII's Hospital in London where Kate, the Duchess of Kate is a patient. The prank involved the radio announcers impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.   In character, the announcers asked a nurse for information about the Duchess of Wales. The station then broadcast the prank. The prank was silly and for some funny.

The consequences do not seem to be:

• The nurse who connected the pair to the ward where the Duchess was, later committed suicide
• The radio station's advertisers began pulling advertising in droves. Finally the station puled all advertising
• The two announcer's are receiving counselling for their actions
• The station has been threatened by hacker group "Anonymous" who have threatened to pull down the website of the station and those of advertisers

I want to express my sorrow to the family who have lost a daughter and a mother. I do not know if she took her life over the prank or whether it was the straw that broke the camels back or if it was a completely unrelated incident.

I do take five Lessons from this affair.

Lesson One: Get Permission

When I was much, much younger, I used to work in radio. I was a DJ for five years with programs at various times. I started on the "graveyard shifts" (weekends midnight to dawn),  did a breakfast program and a morning program. I learnt a lot through radio. One of the things that comes with the responsibility of being on air is ensuring that you have permission to broadcast everything you broadcast.  Every word, every song, every interview. In the current case, to my mind, 2DAY-FM  did not follow this practice. A practice enshrined in the current Australian Media Code of Practice Section 6: Interviews and Talkback Programs:  ''A licensee must not broadcast the words of an identifiable person unless:
a) That person has been informed in advance or a reasonable person would be aware that the words may be broadcast.
b) In the case of words which have been recorded without the knowledge of that person, that person has subsequently, but prior to the broadcast, expressed consent to the broadcast of their words.''

The station said they "tried to contact the Hospital six times". Trying is not good enough. They did not get consent.

The lesson for organisations is that before we publish pictures, quotes or videos from our employees, volunteers and clients, we must have clear permission from the people involved. It has been People First policy that we only take pictures of trainings where people have signed permission for these pictures to be used. I am amazed at the cavalier way other organisations are handling this request for permission. In some places, people have been told before they volunteer or take a job, they must grant permission. People are not given time to consider any document they sign. We must make sure we respect peoples right to have control over their images and words and get their clear permission. When people post images and comments on our Facebook page, we need to show the same standard and look for permissions. We need a policy for it

Lesson Two: Take responsibility for our decisions and actions
This station's management seem to have an ongoing problem. There have been earlier incidents involving 2DAY FM which show a terrible lack of judgement. They escaped censure last time, by the skin of their teeth. If they made such a mistake supporting the airing of this prank and the resulting fall out, they need to own up to it and face the consequences. The management of 2DAY-FM need to go.

Lesson Three: Don't shoot the wounded
The self righteous outcry over the DJs actions is extraordinary. Yes they made the decision to do the prank.  Yes, the prank backfired. Badly backfired. But consider. they will live with the consequences of this error for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine the trauma you would feel over the possibility you did something that caused someone to die? Also, the prank call probably makes it harder for them to work in radio again. I am glad they are getting counselling because they need it. Emails and tweets and comments calling them murderers or evil, do not help.

Lesson Four: We don't need Vigilantes
Fourthly, there are codes and legal processes. We, as the public, may be angry and we may call for justice. We can boycott the station which is a valid response. We may ask others to boycott, But to try and take the law in ur own hands and pull down or hack websites turns us into a 21st Century lynch mob. We may be able to do it but it is not our role.

Lesson Five: Think the Golden Rule
A lesson for us which my parents instilled in me was: "would I want someone to do that to me? " When we are talking with our kids, employees and volunteers we need to get people to think of the consequences of pranks or jokes. We do not want to live in a world with no jokes, no humour but when people  do a prank or a joke, think of the consequences.

Are these lessons valid?