Two New Zealand radio hosts have been suspended after they broadcast a conversation with the mother of England cricketer Ben Stokes without her permission.
New Zealand-based Deborah Stokes phoned Radio Hauraki defending her son after the show’s hosts, Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath, criticised his performance in the World Twenty20 final – in which he was hit for four consecutive sixes by West Indies’s Carlos Brathwaite.
She asked to speak off-air and was told “you’re off-air”, but the call was broadcast live.
She said: “They have never met [Ben], they don’t know him … I don’t know whether they realise he was actually born and bred in New Zealand, and quite frankly has family all over the country. And for those who listen to your station, for them to sit and listen to their cousin and their grandson being bagged like that is absolutely unconscionable.”
Mike McClung, director of New Zealand Media and Entertainment told news.com.au that the two had been suspended from their show.
“Matt and Jeremy are famous for identifying where the line is and then ignoring it. However, putting Ben’s mum to air without her knowledge, albeit defending her son, was obviously well over that line.” – © Guardian News & Media 2016