The Kyle and JackieO Show reneged on a promise to donate money to a sick kid.
Ms Koman and her husband John have both quit their jobs to care for their son and are trying to raise money to help cover the costs of his care.
“The (producer) was saying to me you’ve got to sound … emotional, people will donate more money that way,” Ms Koman told the Today Show.
She told the Today Show she was thrilled with the result which saw a total of $150,000 of money pledged by listeners and Sandilands, but the when the family arrived at radio station 2DayFM to collect the money they were instead given a list of names of those who had pledged money.
Ms Koman told the Today Show she felt like a debt collector after having to call people who had pledged donations.
Sandilands also reneged on his promise of $35,000 and after a number of phone calls handed over $20,000.
How fucking callous is it for Austereo to not even set up a donations account for this family in conjunction with a counter alert to one of the major banks like we see done by other public donation drives all the time? So that their on-air “talent” can exhort pledgers that they can just walk into that major bank and ask to donate money to that cause without having to remember any other details? I’m pretty sure that in such situations the banks waive any set up fees – all it would require is someone in senior management to make a call to their friend in senior management over at the bank.
Indeed, if Austereo were a company that had any true feeling of public responsibility towards the listeners that make it millions through a formula that relies on regular tugging of the heartstrings alongside the tacky titillation, then they would have had a standing arrangement in place with one of the major banks for such donation appeals for years now.
As for Sandilands, what’s with dropping from 35K down to 20K? 20K is still a sizable donation, and if that’s what his budget allowed he could have said 20K for his pledge and still have received plenty of kudos. So why say 35K in the first place unless just to bignote? What an inconsiderate clod.
Self-proclaimed King of Crass? Duke of Puke more likely.
ETA: The Komans have a blog about their challenges caring for their son. You can donate money there.
Categories: ethics & philosophy, media
So I only just discovered the Tomlin Rule 
This my axiom, by me, which is mine 
QOTD: on the blaming of progressive scolds/shamers for the rise of Trumpists 
Hoyden About Town 
“Duke of puke” is making me laugh far more than is appropriate given the rest of the story.
They suck.
I enjoyed “fucking wankstains”. I’m not normally one for that kind of insult but the fact that they exploited a family’s situation (in a self congratulatory back patting, good feelings kind of way on their show no doubt) but actually didn’t do a thing to help them is really sickening. And this isn’t just Vile and Tacky this is producers and management alike who are enabling those two and not doing the requisite work in the above example, not setting up a donation account, expecting Ms Koman to be pleased to receive a list of names and numbers that she’d have to call when she was set up so that she expected to receive the actual donations. Awful. Heart breaking.
Everyone involved in the Show seems to have little morality, and certainly display no empathy for the people that they are using and abusing in their chase for ratings.
(Oops, I thought that I’d logged in as Rayedish, but I’ve somehow logged in via open ID, anyhow its me above, try to imagine a radish avatar up there!)
Must stay calm… must stay calm…
Who would do that? How could anyone do that? How do you get up in the morning having done that? Why would you want to place difficulty on such shoulders?
Tigtog, I object to your use of the term fucking wankstains
(It’s not strong enough! 😀 )
Yeah, what everyone else already said.
What nasty, vicious, miserable excuses for human beings. Their lack of imagination and compassion is loathsome.
(And yes, fucking wankstains too. It’s just that “fucking” is such a strong word that I don’t want to apply it to them. “Wankstains” is good.)
Deborah, thanks for the link. I’ll add it to the post so that it’s indexed more highly by visiting search engines.
The wee boy’s mum has a blog: Joshua, which has a donate button. It seems that they’ve been getting a bit of publicity about the whole “donations” affair, including a TV interview, but the TV people (not sure who, which, or where) wouldn’t let them publicise the blog.
Throughout this whole thing, I’ve persisted in imagining Sandilands as cynically maintaining a come-get-me bad boy sticking-it-to-the-PC-man persona and having a less jerky off-air persona. Not that that would have made the show or Sandilands any better, it’s not as though people are less hurt when ‘only’ an on-air persona behaves cruelly or unethically to them, but nevertheless there seems to be yet another dimension of terribleness here.
Would love to complain to sponsors. Is there a definitive list anywhere? I went to the 2 Day FM site and it looks like Optus is back promoting Pink tickets.
Want to shut these fuckers down. Wish I knew how. Why are they still on air?!
Today’s SMH: the pair apologised to the family and their audience (spot the missing apology) and Sandilands also made the excuse that he didn’t pay the full amount pledged to Joshua Koman’s mother because her ex-husband/Joshua’s father allegedly had his lawyer ring up and ask him to withhold funds and so he did (and now he’s paid up because he’s only just now “satisfied that the money will go to Joshua’s care”).
Wow – withholding money from the custodial parent and full time carer of a disabled child based on any old allegation from the non-custodial parent. What a scumbag.
That’s what he says anyway.
OK, I subjected myself to the last 15 minutes or so of the Kyle and Jackie O Show today in order to catch a few advertisers. These are all Sydney relevant.
Cancer Council Daffodil Day
Audi Centre
Schweppes
Sports Theatre and Bar
Roses Only
Uni of Western Sydney
NRMA
Cadbury (Fundraiser)
STA Travel
There were a couple of others I didn’t quite catch.
I’ve never listened to the show before, except for the one where they abused the 14-year old. It is astonishingly puerile and mind-blowingly dull. At one point they talked about some movies that none of them had seen. One person had seen the Tarantino and Jackie proclaimed that she can’t stand films where people are tortured. I guess she only enjoys it in reality. Someone rang up and said it was great to have some “decent people on the radio” again. Then they talked for a bit about whether some female celebrity had a penis or not.
And the story changes again
Because he was only trying to help the mother you know.
And from his whining about “burn witch burn,” he thinks he’s been victimised worse than that poor girl he humiliated for kicks or boy and family he lied to.