Mel Greig

Something struck me last night as I watched the 7.30 report on the 2DayFM prank scandal. After three days of the story I was only half paying attention until radio veteran Mike Carlton piped up about how the Austereo management had let down “these kids” who were now at the centre of a firestorm.

He was expressing the view of many people on this topic, but I had to go back and check. Michael Christian probably does qualify as a “kid” in media circles. He’s 25. But the other half of the Hot 30 team that is now in hot water, Mel Grieg, is 30, and until recently taught at the Australian Radio School in Adelaide.

According to the ARS website: “We’ll teach you everything from classic communication techniques, producing great shows, copywriting, voiceovers, commercial production, promotions, all the way through to using new media like podcasting and internet radio to score your first gig.”

Continue reading "How old is old enough to know better?" »

Those who are jumping on the bandwagon and directing their fury at a couple of giggly radio hosts over the tragic but unforeseeable death of a troubled British nurse should ask themselves a couple of questions.

The first is whether their rage is in any way approximate to the actions of this pair, who if they had any idea of the consequences of their light-hearted joke would surely never have gone down that path.

The second is whether the extent of this rage – more than 21,000 emails, many of them hateful and even violent, have now been sent to their radio station – is so over the top that it could even help generate the same kind of psychological pressure which saw this poor nurse take her own life.

Continue reading "Plenty of outrage but much of it misplaced" »