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Financial Times accused of lying and shoddy journalism

May 10, 2013

Despicable when a newspaper of the stature of the Financial Times has to resort to this kind of shoddy journalism.

This is from Svenska Dagbladet (my free translation):

You are an Embarrassment Financial Times!

It must be deplored that some reporters cold-bloodedly invented information about the new WTO Director Roberto Azevedo.

The day after the World Trade Organization had chosen the Brazilian diplomat as new head a major article was published in the prestigious Financial Times. It began with a detailed description of how Azevedo appeared  when he came out of the WTO headquarters in Geneva at 18.30 on Tuesday night to meet a large press contingent. “He came out of the headquarters and met an expectant press gang outside,” writes the paper’s two reporters. The report continues on how Azevedo was quiet and did not say anything. But his happy facial expressions and his smile revealed that he had been elected.  A smile that was also used in the title:

The FT Headline: “Sealed with a smile: how Brazil got its man Azevêdo into the WTO”

By Claire Jones in London and Joseph Leahy in São Paulo Last updated: May 8, 2013 9:26 pm

The Brazilian candidate betrayed his success with a smile.

Just after 6.30pm local time on Tuesday evening, Roberto Azevêdo made his way out of the World Trade Organisation’s Geneva headquarters to find an expectant press pack gathered outside.

The Brazilian ambassador to the WTO remained silent. But his cheery expression was a giveaway: minutes earlier, Mr Azevêdo had been told he had secured the nomination to replace Pascal Lamy. With that, he capped an almost five-month campaign by Brazil that saw him visit 47 countries and join President Dilma Rousseff in key meetings with global leaders as she lobbied on his behalf. … 

The Svenska Dagbladet continues:

Not just embarrassing, it was just not true.

Azevedo did not come out of the WTO headquarters.

Nor was he silent, nor did he smile and  he certainly did not meet any press contingent. He was not even there!.

He sat and waited nervously with Brazil’s UN delegation several kilometers away.

The only one who received the news at WTO headquarters was Brazil’s deputy ambassador Estanislau Amaral.

I know this along with all the other journalists with certainty because we were there.  We saw Amaral hurrying out, spoke briefly with him, saw him go off in his official car. No Azevedo in sight. Moreover a picture of Azevedo was sent on Twitter at that moment  was sitting in his office in a completely different part of town with his wife Maria.

The FT journalists were not even there.

One sat in London, Claire Jones, and one in Sao Paulo, Joseph Leahy.  They invented the story that implied their presence and to provide a personal touch.  Not a very good journalistic idea for a magazine that should be concerned about its credibility and its reputation.

They could learn from what happened with journalists at Bloomberg this week. Two journalists in Prague published an article on the Czech National Bank one minute ahead of an embargo. It caused Bloomberg’s news director in Washington to hit the roof, take the next plane to Prague and and fire them on the spot.  Journalistic reliability is “extremely important” was the explanation.

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Why is the New York Times publicising fraudster Stapel’s book?

April 30, 2013

I would not have expected the New York Times to be an apologist and a publicist for a fraudster.

The case of Diedrik Stapel and all the data he faked by just making them up to fit his pre-determined results will always bring discredit to the field (not science) of social psychology. But Stapel is now busy creating a new career for himself where his fraud itself is to be the vehicle of his future success. He has written a book about his derailment and the adoring media have not only forgiven him but are now playing an active part in his rehabilitation: in  humanising him and publicisng his book. The con continues and the media are (perhaps unwitting) partners to the con.

The New York Times ran a long “analytical” article about Stapel and his fraud a few days ago. A long interview with Stapel and ostensibly a “neutral” piece the article is entirely concerned with humanising the “criminal”.  It seems to me that Stapel is very successfully continuing to manipulate the media which earlier used to idolise him for his ridiculous “studies” (eating meat made people selfish!). But if you look at the NYT piece as a piece of marketing material for a book written by a discredited author it all makes sense. In fact the NYT article might just as well have been commissioned by the publishers of the book

NYT:  …. Right away Stapel expressed what sounded like heartfelt remorse for what he did to his students. “I have fallen from my throne — I am on the floor,” he said, waving at the ground. “I am in therapy every week. I hate myself.” That afternoon and in later conversations, he referred to himself several times as tall, charming or handsome, less out of arrogance, it seemed, than what I took to be an anxious desire to focus on positive aspects of himself that were demonstrably not false. ….. 

Stapel did not deny that his deceit was driven by ambition. But it was more complicated than that, he told me. He insisted that he loved social psychology but had been frustrated by the messiness of experimental data, which rarely led to clear conclusions. His lifelong obsession with elegance and order, he said, led him to concoct sexy results that journals found attractive. “It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,” he said. He described his behavior as an addiction that drove him to carry out acts of increasingly daring fraud, like a junkie seeking a bigger and better high. ….

The report’s publication would also allow him to release a book he had written in Dutch titled “Ontsporing” — “derailment” in English — for which he was paid a modest advance. The book is an examination of his life based on a personal diary he started after his fraud was made public. Stapel wanted it to bring both redemption and profit, and he seemed not to have given much thought to whether it would help or hurt him in his narrower quest to seek forgiveness from the students and colleagues he duped.

The New York Times : The mind of a con man Published: April 26, 2013

“The book is an examination of his life based on a personal diary he started after his fraud was made public.”  writes our intrepid NYT reporter.

Really? – and how much of this self-serving “diary” was faked or just made up?

Willingly or otherwise, the New York Times (and the reporter Yudhijit Bhattacharjee) are being duped and manipulated by a consummate fraudster.

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, Fraud, Media, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | 3 Comments »

Climate science on “negative watch”

March 30, 2013

Graphic: The Economist

The almost 20 year pause in global warming while emissions of carbon dioxide have continued to increase can no longer be ignored. Following The Economist’s article earlier this week, more of the main steam media are beginning to question if climate science is as “settled” as some would like us to believe. I would go a little further than The Australian and say that “climate science” and not just “climate sensitivity”  is now on “negative watch” if not as yet “downgraded”. While it is encouraging that some sanity may be returning to the debate as evidenced by the greater interest from the main stream media to question global warming orthodoxy (Die Welt, Jyllands Posten, Der Spiegel, The Telegraph, Daily Mail), they are already a little late. “Climate Science” has actually been at “junk” levels since Copenhagen and Climategate and is only just beginning to creep up from there!

The Australian:

DEBATE about the reality of a two-decade pause in global warming and what it means has made its way from the sceptical fringe to the mainstream.

In a lengthy article this week, The Economist magazine said if climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, then climate sensitivity – the way climate reacts to changes in carbon-dioxide levels – would be on negative watch but not yet downgraded.

Another paper published by leading climate scientist James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the lower than expected temperature rise between 2000 and the present could be explained by increased emissions from burning coal.

For Hansen the pause is a fact, but it’s good news that probably won’t last.

International Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri recently told The Weekend Australian the hiatus would have to last 30 to 40 years “at least” to break the long-term warming trend. 

But the fact that global surface temperatures have not followed the expected global warming pattern is now widely accepted.

Research by Ed Hawkins of University of Reading shows surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range projections derived from 20 climate models and if they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.

“The global temperature standstill shows that climate models are diverging from observations,” says David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

“If we have not passed it already, we are on the threshold of global observations becoming incompatible with the consensus theory of climate change,” he says.

Whitehouse argues that whatever has happened to make temperatures remain constant requires an explanation because the pause in temperature rise has occurred despite a sharp increase in global carbon emissions. ….. 

 

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Reading habits change as “newspapers of record” have become my “sites of record”

March 20, 2013

English newspapers

There was a time when one or two newspapers in every country had the reputation of being the “newspaper of record”. The Times of London, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, Washington Post, Pravda, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde, The Times of India, El Pais and Corriere della Sera to name but a few.  They had reputations for objective news reporting and separated news and opinion rigorously. Of course, this reputation was never fully deserved since they often also represented “political correctness” or the “establishment view”.  Financial news of any note had to be in The Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal. Reuters and AFP and AP and UPI were the wire services considered infallible. The coming of Radio added immediacy but did not change the power structure in news reporting very much except to add a few more names to the “media of record”. The BBC and the Voice of America led the way but while the BBC was perceived as being fairly objective, the Voice of America was always seen as being mainly factual but with an obvious propagandist agenda.

The advent of TV news started an irreversible change. As news-only channels and cable TV proliferated and as countries all developed their own wire-services, radio and TV stations (often state owned), the blending of factual reporting with opinion was both inevitable and unavoidable. Even the factual reporting became selective depending upon the opinion to be disseminated. All that has evolved further with the coming of the internet and the explosion of the blogosphere. “Factual news” devoid of opinion is almost impossible to find anymore though the wire services probably come closest. To make life even more confusing – but also more interesting – opinion now often masquerades as fact.  Fantasy can be presented as reality and opinion presented as science. Every medium has a political agenda. Journalism sometimes consists as much of making news as reporting it. Polls of how readers “think it should be” replaces “how it is”.  Consensus opinion is taken to be fact. It places an increasing demand on the reader to be discerning, to try and sort out fact from opinion and reality from propaganda.  And trying to be a discerning reader takes time.

The number of news sites available on-line is enormous and I only visit a selected few. No doubt my selection of sites itself represents and reinforces my biases. My selections do change – but not daily. There is no single site I completely trust to have separated fact from opinion. Sites with intrusive or aggressive advertising are irritating, tend to become very slow and lose my interest. I do go to some Murdoch sites but many are behind stringent pay-walls. They are all very strong on opinion and I perceive that they tend to “doctor” news – by omission – to suit their opinions. The Times has completely abdicated its former position and is no longer of much significance. The Times of India has become a nightmare of rather ineffective advertising and I don’t visit unless directed there for something specific. The Hindu has taken over from the ToI and is the only “quality” paper left in India. The Guardian and the Washington Post are  prone to omitting facts they don’t like or which don’t fit their opinions. They still see themselves as virtuous crusaders and they always know what is best for others. But I still do visit them to keep some balance. CNN on TV is just too flaky and some of their journalists are intolerably incompetent. I do watch CNN and Al Jazeera on hotel room TV’s when I am travelling but only if BBC is not available.  For on-line news CNN is eclipsed by the BBC and I visit CNN only for “breaking US news”. But the BBC itself is not immune to “political correctness” as they perceive it.

It used to take me not more than about 45 – 60 minutes every morning with 2 cups of coffee to go through 2 or 3 print newspapers (with the choice dependent upon where I was living) . It now takes me about 90 minutes and two cups of coffee every morning before I am ready to start doing “my own thing”. I usually start the morning 0n-line by scanning the world news starting with the BBC and then shifting to  Japan and moving around the world East to West. It takes me about 30- 45 minutes to scan my selected sites and bookmark some 5 – 8 articles for a further 30 – 45 minutes of reading. I usually go to specialist subject sites and the blogosphere only after that and when I have time during the day.  But this probably represents another 2 hours of my time every day. Compared to 30 years ago I probably spend 3 or 4 times as much time today on reading news. The news I cover is much wider in scope than it ever was. It is also deeper because trivia is more strictly ignored and subjects for further reading are selected with greater precision. I certainly have opinions on many more subjects today than I would have had 30 years ago. The sites where opinion masquerades as fact are the most time consuming. It is noticeable that though there is a large grey zone between the newspapers (on-line) and blogs, the blogs are much more transparently opinionated. I tend to balance many of the more blatantly biased blogs against each other (e.g. HuffPo against Drudge or Daily Kos against Red State) as a matter of course but I don’t avoid them.  But I still look for confirmation of blog information at the traditional newspapers or wire services. Blogs are a way for me to stop getting stuck in the rut of “political correctness” but the blogs alone do not serve.

So this is my current list of my “sites of record” which are my regular ports of call. They are – individually – not as authoritative or as objective as “newspapers of record” were perceived to be, but together – after eliminating opinion – they are probably a more accurate and more comprehensive “record” of happenings around the world than the newspapers of old ever were. And 30 years ago there was no way I could have covered the world news as I can do now. I perceive that I can choose to be as informed as I wish to be about any subject anywhere in the world and not – as 30 years ago – be restricted to whatever was dished up for my consumption.

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Being on-line and anonymous does not eliminate accountability and responsibility

March 6, 2013

The Washington Post considers the pluses and minuses of anonymity in the on-line world but typically just stays on the fence. “It’s complicated”. In an abundance of indecision and of  “political correctness” it reaches no conclusion.

But I take a rather simplistic and uncomplicated view. “On-line” is just one more medium through which “publishing” can take place. This medium may be much more immediate and with greater global spread than other media. But whatever the medium may be, responsibility and accountability for what is published cannot just vanish. It cannot just disappear into some black hole between an author and his publisher. Either the publisher or the author must take responsibility and be accountable for whatever is published. The publisher controls the medium. Whether he wishes to allow anonymity or not is his prerogative. But if the publisher (the on-line web-site host) allows his authors to keep their identities secret from the public then he must take responsibility and be accountable for what is published.  It is also then his call as to whether he himself wishes to know the identity of those using the platform he provides. Where, however, the author is publicly identified then the publisher is effectively indemnified.

Where comments (on a blog or a web-site or a forum) are allowed anonymously then applying moderation is the host’s call but he cannot escape the responsibility or the accountability for the content he allows.

Anonymity does not eliminate responsibility and accountability. It merely shifts responsibility from the author to the publisher. The buck has to stop somewhere.

Washington Post: It shields the whistleblower from blowback and the deep-background source from getting deep-sixed. It helped women publish novels way back when . . . when that was a pretty novel idea. But it can also embolden the kook to get kookier and the racist to get . . . well, you get the picture.

….. Fey and Pexton, whose thoughts have gotten the viral launch that only a lengthy discussion on NBC’s “Today” show can provide, veer toward an age-old question. Does anonymity make us good? Or does it make us bad? And now that we’ve had a good long while to get used to splashing around online, there’s another question to ponder: Does the Internet make it easier for us to be anonymously bad or anonymously better?

The answer isn’t so simple. Consider 4Chan, a hugely popular and emphatically anonymous Internet board that began as a place to discuss Japanese anime and has swelled into dozens of boards focused on everything from “science & math” to “Sexy Beautiful Women.”

The site can get raunchy. The posters can get rough with each other. Anonymity has the effect of making the users less inhibited, said Michael S. Bernstein, who studied the site’s “/b/ – random” board with colleagues at MIT and the University of Southampton in Britain. That lack of inhibition has led to plenty of “gore, pornography and racism,” Bernstein, now a computer science professor at Stanford University, said in an interview.

But amid all the offensive behavior, Bernstein and his fellow researchers also found that anonymity had a lot of positive effects. One of the most notable was the creation of a culture that fostered experimentation and new ideas. Since no names were being used, the users felt more comfortable taking risks. They’ve ended up contributing to the creation of an Internet culture and to a proliferation of memes. ….

…. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the respected journal Science, was concerned enough to commission a study that concluded anonymity was something worth striving to preserve. “There was talk at the time about making anonymity difficult or impossible,” said Albert H. Teich, a professor at George Washington University who was director of science and policy programs at AAAS when the study was released.

The scientists wanted the Internet to be a place where political opinions could be expressed freely without fear of repercussions; where, say, a teen struggling to come to grips with his sexuality could discreetly seek advice.

…. Still, he’s torn. Terrorism gives him an argument against anonymity. Protecting contacts who were helping AAAS combat human rights violations in Central America gives him a reason to protect anonymity. …..

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Facebook envy is a hidden threat to life satisfaction

January 22, 2013

Social networking has its downsides. I suspect that all enhanced networking for the many will always lead to new stresses and some form of negative behaviour for a few.

The results of a German study of Facebook users is to be presented at an international conference next month:

11th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, 

Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction? by Hanna Krasnova, Helena Wenninger, Thomas Widjaja  and Peter Buxmann

A pdf version of the report is available here: Facebook Envy

cbronline.com: According to a new German study of over 600 people, using Facebook could make its users feel envious of their successful friends. This result may lead to frustration and dissatisfaction.

The joint research was conducted by Prof. Dr. Peter Buxmann from the Department of Information Systems of the TU Darmstadt and Dr. Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

The research, “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction” revealed that over one-third of surveyed Facebook users reported negative feelings,including frustration, when using the site. Many said this was a cause of feeling envious towards their Facebook friends.

Hanna Krasnova said that although respondents were reluctant to admit feeling envious while on Facebook, they often presumed that envy can be the cause behind the frustration of ‘others’ on this platform — a clear indication that envy is an increasing phenomenon in the Facebook context. “Indeed, access to copious positive news and the profiles of seemingly successful ‘friends’ fosters social comparison that can readily provoke envy,” Krasnova said.

Medical Daily adds:

The study also found that people who use facebook to browse pictures, read wall posts or check newsfeeds are more likely to harbor negative feelings than people who actively participate on the networking platform.

Previous research has associated Facebook use with anxiety, debt and even higher weight. Whether or not Facebook increases depression is still open to debate. But almost everyone agrees that Facebook is addictive, and according to a study, sometimes even more than sex.

A recent study on facebook published in the journal Memory & Cognition had found that people are more likely to remember facebook status updates than lines from a book or even a person’s face. 

Researchers who conducted the present study also found that about a fifth of all events that lead to envy among people were somewhere within the context of facebook. Researchers call this phenomenon as the “envy spiral” where envy leads a person to change his or her profile which in turn leads “others” to be envious.

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10 young schoolgirls killed by landmine

December 17, 2012

This was today.

AFP – Ten young girls were killed when a landmine exploded Monday while they were collecting firewood in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, officials said. 

The girls, aged between nine and 11, died when one of them accidentally struck the old mine with an axe, Chaparhar district governor Mohammad Sediq Dawlatzai told AFP.

Nangarhar, Afghanistan or Newtown, Connecticut — No difference really for the children and their parents and families and communities.

But what should I make of  the “lavish” media coverage in the one case and the non-coverage in the other? or when  private grief is intruded upon while an outpouring of public grief seems stage-managed for TV cameras?

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With malice aforethought

December 9, 2012

After 18 hours of travel I have been catching up on the news. I find I still can’t get Jacintha Saldanha out of my mind but the news today is still disturbing.  Now there are a number of apologists trying to play down the consequences of the hoax perpetrated by Mel Greig and Michael Christian and their radio station. Even Piers Morgan tried to play it down – but with his role in the hacking culture, that does not surprise very much.

 Daily Beast: “Prank calls have been going on for 50 years in the radio industry,” says Sandy Kaye, a spokeswoman for Southern Cross Austereo. “It is not designed to humiliate or embarrass.”

But of course it was meant to humiliate. 

 Globe and Mail: “As we have said in our own statements on the matter, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable”. ….. 

Ms. Greig and Mr. Christian have both apologized. Rhys Holleran, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo, said they were “shattered” and undergoing counselling.

Guardian: Editorials in Australian Sunday newspapers said the DJs were not responsible for the tragic death.

“While the prank may have been stupid, Mel Greig and Michael Christian surely did not mean to hurt anyone,” said the editorial in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Telegraph newspaper. “Prank calls are among the oldest tricks in radio. Occasionally funny, mostly cringeworthy, they usually result in mere pointless humiliation of a hapless victim.”

A columnist for the Fairfax-owned Sun Herald, Peter FitzSimons, said the death of Saldanha was a “tragedy of unspeakable proportions”. ….. He said there was not a shred of evidence there was any malice in the prank call. “Who could possibly have thought that a silly prank call like that – one of thousands of prank calls, no doubt, made by radio stations around the world on that day – would have led to the young woman taking her life?” wrote FitzSimons.

I got to wondering why I was getting so upset. And then I realised that it was because it was always the intention to humiliate someone for the sake of a few laughs. For the “prank” to succeed somebody had to get hurt. The humiliation was not unforeseen. The laughs were obtained. Whether Australians like it or not Mel Greig and Michael Christian represent the face of modern Australian humour.  And it wasn’t thoughtless as I have previously called it. It was a deliberate attempt – after legal consideration – to continue with the humiliation and for the station to play for the laughs even after she was dead.

I have heard regret about her tragic death but none of those responsible has expressed any regret or seen fit to apologise to her family for humiliating her. It is too late to apologise to her.

The perpetrators are to get counselling! Poor things! When in the depths of her humiliation and they were gloating on air, Jacintha Saldanha could have done with some but there was none forthcoming. A public birching or a period in the stocks might seem appropriate for these 2 bright sparks, but that just wouldn’t be right. But instead of getting counselling perhaps they could volunteer for a year or two at a hospital?

When Jacintha Saldanha filled in at the reception that night she had no reason to expect to be humiliated for doing what any conscientious nurse would have done. She should not have been. Malice at any time and even against the rich and famous cannot be  justified. But malice against someone defenceless and vulnerable is worse than contemptible.

For all the apologists for Mel Greig and Michael Christian and their radio station:

The humiliation was intended.

The laughs were obtained as intended.

With malice aforethought!

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Posted in Australia, Behaviour, Media | 2 Comments »

On murder by pranking

December 8, 2012

It is not the “prank” which disgusts.

It is the lack of thought by two giggling radio DJ’s and their managers. It is their juvenile behaviour. It is their lack of intelligence. It is their betrayal of the trust shown by someone trying to be helpful. And it is the utter disregard for what their victims might suffer.

It is the lack of thought for the consequences of deliberately trying to break the trust extended by the unfortunate staff who were the butt of their call. It should not be beyond the intelligence of even Australian radio DJ’s or their boss – Rhys Holleran – to have realised that in the event of their prank succeeding, some poor staff member would have faced the sack. It should not have been beyond their little intelligence that revealing the private medical details of a mother -to-be – no matter how famous the person – was a fundamental breach of an individual’s privacy. They deny the sapiens in homo sapiens.

Once many years ago my 5 year-old son fell on the ice and suffered a concussion while I was travelling in the US. He was kept in hospital overnight and my wife spent the night with him. By the time I got the message it was about 2am back home. I called the hospital and an extremely helpful nurse filled me in, reassured me and then woke my wife so I could speak with her. I am forever grateful to that nurse who took me at my word as to who I was. How else can a nurse – or a hospital –  operate except in an atmosphere of trust? How else could Jacintha Saldanha have reacted unless the hospital had routed all calls from all worried relatives through some faceless security system?

It was murder by pranking and Mel Greig and Michael Christian are guilty. Their legal advisors and the station management are also guilty. Jacintha Saldanha was their victim. This crime carries no legal penalty but it was a betrayal of trust. It was – in my book -criminal behaviour. Maybe it cannot be used to generalise about the media and their methods but it certainly does add to my view that the media are untrustworthy and many of their employees are unintelligent and unthinking. I doubt that they are capable of regulating themselves.

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Posted in Australia, Behaviour, Media | 2 Comments »

Nurse hoaxed by Australian call commits suicide

December 7, 2012

This is more than sad.

Update: The nurse has been named as Jacintha Sadanha. She was married with 2 children.

Update2: It is now early Saturday morning in Australia but there is as yet little regret for this childish prank gone horribly bad. Sky News Australia reports that “Sydney-based 2Day FM was continuing to promote its prank call on air during the early hours of Saturday morning in the city”.

The hoaxers, Mel Greig and Michael Christian will no doubt get away with it. After all it was just a clever prank call. They have been bragging about it all week. But can they really not have any responsibility? I can only begin to imagine the harassment and embarrassment and ridicule the poor nurse came under — which was probably multiplied several times by today’s social media.

Mel Greig and Michael Christian: image thesun.co.uk

The Independent:The nurse who took a prank phone call at the Duchess of Cambridge’s hospital has been found dead in a suspected suicide.

The woman received the phone call from two Australian radio presenters and, believing she was speaking with the Queen, passed it to a colleague who revealed private information about the Duchess’ condition.

An ambulance was called to the hospital this morning where the woman was found unconscious.

Paramedics made efforts to revive her but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

The nurse is understood to be the first person to be heard during a hoax call to the Edward VII Hospital from two presenters from the Australian radio station 2Day FM.

…. The woman nurse who has been found dead took the call from the radio DJs in the early hours of Tuesday morning saying: “Hello, good morning, King Edward VII Hospital.”

The presenter, Mel Greig, who was impersonating the Queen said: “Oh, hello there. Could I please speak to Kate please, my granddaughter?”

The woman answered: “Oh yes, just hold on ma’am.” ….

… The two hoaxers, Greig and Michael Christian, were put through to a second nurse who told them: “She’s sleeping at the moment and she has had an uneventful night. She’s been given some fluids, she’s stable at the moment.”

Update! Nurse named but hoaxers are silent

The hospital said in a statement: ““We can confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff, Jacintha Saldanha.

”Jacintha has worked at the King Edward VII Hospital for more than four years. She was an excellent nurse and a well-respected and popular member of staff with all her colleagues.

“We can confirm that Jacintha was recently the victim of a hoax call to the hospital. The hospital has been supporting her at this difficult time.”

Hospital chief executive John Lofthouse said: “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies at this time are with her family and friends. Everyone is shocked by the loss of a much-loved and valued colleague.”

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Posted in Australia, Behaviour, Media, UK | 5 Comments »

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