The great power of the internet is the ability to get information and share ideas without barriers. This can be a good thing as our support network demonstrates. Costello syndrome is rare, and our membership is spread around the world. Without the web, our group simply would not exist.

Sometimes somebody in a far of land can make  insensitive and insulting comments, and offend not only the local community, but communities around the world. On Sunday July 11th ago one such indecent happened in Australia.

Channel seven Australia has a show called weekend sunrise. Being in England I have never watched it, and was alerted about the indecent by one of our Australian members. During a regular segment about a school teacher who was suing the government over her damaged larynx, after constant yelling in order to control a composite class of Year 6 and 7. The regular guest Prue MacSween made some disturbing and insulting comments about children with special needs. I watched the segment on You-tube, (because channel 7 had pulled the segment from their website) to see what all the fuss was about,  and was surprised that at no time during the discussion was any mention as to why the teacher was yelling in the first place, and is yelling appropriate behaviour for a teacher in the first place.

As the discussion progressed the following statement was made by  Prue MacSween

Children with special needs should not be allowed to be in mainstream, classes with “normal” kids, • they hold them back (children without special needs) • Children with special needs should be “put somewhere and trained” and “properly administered to” • And that all boys are “retarded”

WHAT! did I hear that right. I watched the segment to the end, hardly able to comprehend that not only had a regular on the show just made one of the most insulting narrow minded statement on TV. The shows other presenters made no effort to apologise.

The TV company who make the show have said “Live television is always unpredictable. But clearly, Pru offended many parents with her remark”.

Sounds like an excuse, don’t the presenters and guests have a code of conduct, and if the TV company have taken the time to make the above statement, why have they not apologised to all the parents that have been offended.

On the other hand MacSween did apologise sort of.  She made an apology on her twitter feed, she tweeted the following message:-

“I apologise to those people who were offended by my remarks on Weekend Sunrise, however, you have misunderstood what was said.

What a great way to apologise,  use twitter, then take the apology back by blaming the viewers for misunderstanding her words. Right, that must be the reason why you can not take the time to formally apologise on air, your apology may be misunderstand .

Over a week has passed, since the show was broadcast, in that time a large and growing protest group has been set up on Facebook site  called “Prue MacSween and Channel 7 Should Apologise” with over 2,300 members. The TV station has not apologised for the upset and offence, MacSween has not apologised. I wonder why this would be so hard to do. And sadly the only concusion I can draw is that there is a possibility that the station stands by the comments and is Institutionally discriminatory.

I would like to remind Channel seven and the production company this is the 21st century. Not the 18th, and perhaps if your researchers  had spent a little time researching the original story, then maybe such bigoted and offensive views would not have been aired.

To help with future research about teaching,  you may like to take a look at the following website BFI , and maybe the teacher in question should find a new profession if teaching results in her yelling in class.

Update 20/07 /2010 9.40 am

After the show aired and viewers complained to the station, the video feed from the show was pulled from the web. Have Channel 7 never heard of the Streisand effect? The video has now been re-instated and can be viewed on-line by visiting the following link : Sunrise Allstars The offending piece begins about 4.44 mins in, after the discussion about the teacher.

Still no apology made however.