Mel Greig: The true story of the royal prank call

On June 1, 2104, Mel Grieg, one of the Sydney radio DJ's behind the infamous 'Royal prank call' appeared on Sunday Night to reveal her side of the story, and how she tried to prevent the call from going to air.

The call took place in December 2012, Mel and her cohost Michael Christian made a call to Kind Edward VII Hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated for acute morning sickness, pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles.

The nurse who took the phone call revealed details of Kate's condition. The call made headlines around the world. Three days later, Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who took the call, was found hanged. She left behind a note which blamed the two radio DJ's for her death.

In her interview with Sunday Night, Mel Greig revealed how she had pushed for the recording to be altered to spare the nurse the embarrassment, but was ignored. As a consequence of this scandal, Greig lost her career and her health. She received hate for the call and her family were also attacked.

There is a lot to be said from this story about the standard of media today, and the effect the media can have on people. As a result of this prank call, a woman died, children lost their mother, jobs were lost, careers ended, families were threatened, hate was spread, and more than one life was ruined.

The media is a powerful tool, especially in this technology-driven age. Events such as these can quickly become widespread, and it is not only mainstream media that are involved, it usually spreads to online and social media outlets, where anyone had to power to comment or get involved in media issues - this can be a good thing in some circumstances, but people can be ruthless as we saw in this case, Grieg's mother was threatened during the scandal, receiving phone calls stating "an eye for an eye- she died... and now you have to die".

It is not only Grieg who should have been responsible for the story that went to air (though she definitely was responsible on some level), everyone involved should have considered the possible outcomes of airing something like this. The nurse clearly did not know the call was a prank, and the media were ruthless in their consideration of her part in this and the possible effect it could have had on her.

I believe this is a very strong example of the negative effect of the media. There are many more cases in which lives have been ruined by media - mainstream and online, and I think it is an opportunity for everyone to step back and take a look at just how serious careless media reporting can be.