How hard is it to get a call-back number and verify, using the internet, that it actually is the person they say they are prior to going on the air? Would an extra 25 seconds of verification make a difference, other than the prank not getting on the air?
It can be impossible to quickly verify the number in these situations. How do you trace and "verify" a cell phone number? You don't know if the public official rushed out and is using somebody else's phone. You don't know if the official has asked to use the phone in somebody else's office or home.
And, unfortunately, under this kind of time pressure the extra 25-seconds may make a difference. The official may have other people who want his immediate attention, if you opt to call him, or her, back you may lose contact and whatever is important to your audience may not get reported to them. Everybody involved is under extreme second-to-second time pressure in these situations.
It is too about scooping and getting ratings. Don't try and sell me any other line of b.s. It's a business first, a news organization second. The days of Edward R. Murrow are long gone, and these cable news operations have 24 hours a day to fill.
Do you really think that when a plane crashes in a neighborhood with massive loss of life and homes on the ground on fire, that professional reporters covering this breaking news really have time, or any human inclination, to worry about "ratings" or "scooping the competition?" In "professional" news organizations, management worries about the business, a program director type worries about the ratings over time, and the news staff worries about putting out the best possible news product for their audience.
Believe me, when major news is breaking those newsrooms are NOT worried about how they are going to fill their 24-hours of airtime. And the short-term emergency ratings boost probably has little impact on the long-term bottom line of the organization anyway.
Excuses, excuses, excuses...
First of all, those "pranked" don't need to make any excuses. They are doing what's right and reasonable. And the only real "excuse" that is reasonable is the mental illness of the prankster. A juvenile mind in an adult body calling out for attention from a world he desperately wants to feel important in. A pathetic sick-O can use that "excuse" for his always inappropriate actions, and most reasonable people would take pity on him, and suggest he get some professional help.
The news types who get "pranked" in these sudden pressure cooker situations understandably may have to trust that a caller is who he claims to be, and with millions of people honestly concerned about the situation, and everybody scrambling to make sense of it, it is easy to forget that somewhere out there, possibly still living in his mother's basement at age-48, is a Howard Stern wannabee who has waited all his life for his 20-seconds on the big stage, and so he utters Babba-Booey Babba-Booey into a phone while alone in his room, and suddenly his pathetic little life has meaning. In his own warped mind he is a star, while the millions who heard him think he is sick scum.
I have never seen the Jennings tape, but it doesn't matter. Millions of people were watching what they thought was a legitimate real-time news story and nobody was sure how it was going to end. No excuses for the prankster, it was totally inappropriate, and dishonest.
No way, I am going to defend the Royal family, but it may be likely that two kids in England would still have a mother, and a good hospital would still employ a good nurse, if two misguided Australians could have thought of a better way to try to be legitimately entertaining on their radio show.
