Media reporting of suicide

Tom Dunne

In a thread over on After Hours, the following excellent point was made:

I was down visiting my parents a few weeks ago and caught up with back issues of the local paper, The New Ross Standard.

A recent issue had a headline on the front along the lines of 'Three tragic deaths' - with photographs of three people who had died in the previous week in unconnected circumstances. As far as I know, one of these was a brother of Mr Dunne.

At no stage in any of the newspaper reports was the cause of death given - aside from 'died tragically at home'.

My father was able to confirm that all three people had taken their own lives by a variety of means. No doubt about it.

If somebody dies in a road accident, the cause of death is reported as such.

In another edition of the newspaper, probably a couple of weeks beforehand, there was a notice about a health board public meeting on the youth suicide problem.

What suicide problem?

If we're to go by the media's highly selective, irresponsible, misleading and inaccurate reporting, there is little or no suicide in Ireland.

People can sweep it under the carpet all the like and not report the facts for fear of upsetting the families. That won't make the problem go away.

I wholeheartedly agree.

We have a situation where the media is afraid to report suicides, presumably afraid of further upsetting the family involved. Yet we see headlines such as that in the gutter-press Indo today "Horror at how a tragic father killed his family" and headlines such as those in the Sunday Independent when Liam Lawlor died.

Are the media morally obliged to report suicides as such instead of brushing them under the carpet with headlines such as that described in the quote above?

There is a terrible stigma associated with suicide in this country. Anecdotally, it appears to be the young, rural male who sees no escape who seem to be the most susceptible to suicide. I think a massive change in attitude is required, the stigma associated suicide needs to be removed.

Given the race to the bottom that is underway in the media these days, do you think reporters have the balls to report suicides as suicides?

DMC

Ooooffh... Tough one.

Leaving the present case aside, and discussing young male suicide, it would take a brave, brave family to tell the media that their young son died as a result of suicide, at the height of their grief. The media in this country has had a high standard of not intruding on the private lives of non-public figures. They would have to respect the wishes of the family in their times of grief.

constitutionus

actually i think its far more insidious than that. i think a thorough examination of suicide in this country would reveal that its the policies that led to the Celtic tiger thats behind alot of it and that's not in the economic interest.

look at our country, we're not a society anymore we're an economy. and practically all the conventions we've been raised with have either been cast in an ignoble light or downright demonised. hell we even have an ex president telling women if they have a degree and they want to stay home to raise a family theyre selfish bitches letting the side down!
the last thing the government and big business want is journalists tellling us that sticking kids in ceches and forcing both parents out to work whilst chaining themselve to 40yr mortgages when they dont know if theyll be in a job in 40months time isnt conducive to a healthy society and will more than likely end up with massive social problems and the present high suicide rate. the fact is i reckon its only gonna get worse because the financial preasures on people to have any form of security is beyond belief. and when people dont think they can provide security they crack.

standard policy from every source the last 20yrs has been to deconstruct us into little economic cogs for the ecomomy and hey its worked, were making billions, but we're also miserable and the binge drinking, drug taking , anti social behaviour and general selfishness are just symptoms of that. along with the suicide epidemic that far exceeds the road death figures but is "mysteriously " ignored for fear of upsetting the apple cart

oh and by the way suicides not a taboo anymore and alot of the people i know whove lost loved ones that way dont have any problem calling it as it is. in fact if anything they want to highlight the subject seeing how out of the blue it is. the last guy i knew (last week) was 19 and apparently had everything going for him. he didnt do drugs, he had so many friends they had to fight to get into the church twice and he had a loving family (dad's devastated, thats how i knew the guy ). the hesitancy seems solely to be with the media and i'd have to question why that is

put simply, if the only way to lower the suicide rate was to sacrifice the economy and retrench our society would the media report it? i think not because at the end of the day big business owns the media and its not in their interest.

DMC

constitutionus wrote:

actually i think its far more insidious than that. i think a thorough examination of suicide in this country would reveal that its the policies that led to the Celtic tiger thats behind alot of it and that's not in the economic interest.

Bunk. Suicide has been on the rise since the 1960's, and its only in the last 10-15 years that this country has prospered. People committed suicide when this country was poor. Joblessness and poverty were rife. You can't link the suicide rate to purely to economic success.


http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/irel.pdf (2006 figures from the WHO with the latest numbers for Ireland)

mike65

Good to know suicide is a capitalist plot. Explains the Swedes does'nt it (not)?

Sucide is'nt a taboo word/subject now but of course it used to be a Catholic sin (proberly still is officially) so was verboten.

The reporting on the current tragedy has been rather thorough though possibly not to much enlightening effect. The radio esp Newsalk has been banging on all day about it.

Mike

constitutionus

DMC wrote:

Bunk. Suicide has been on the rise since the 1960's, and its only in the last 10-15 years that this country has prospered. People committed suicide when this country was poor. Joblessness and poverty were rife. You can't link the suicide rate to purely to economic success.


http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/irel.pdf (2006 figures from the WHO with the latest numbers for Ireland)

not economic sucess, economic policy.

answer me honestly ,do you think the media would report it if it was proven economic policies and the necessary social refrom needed to enact it led to an increse in suicide?

DMC

constitutionus wrote:

answer me honestly ,do you think the media would report it if it was proven economic policies and the necessary social refrom needed to enact it led to an increse in suicide?

If a policy group or Dail committees (and in this tragic case, there is going to be a independent inquiry), showed that reform in attitudes and care for mental health is needed, the media can't fluff that off.

As Mike correctly said, Sweden is supposedly the country that everyone compares the rest of Europe to in terms of social and economic policy, and yet, it has a suicide rate greater than Ireland. Explain that.

http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/swed.pdf

I fail to see why you think economic policy or success (economic policy has been a success, the two terms are intertwined for so long) are the main drivers for an increase in suicide rates.

constitutionus

oh come on man. im earn twice what my dad was on now. he bought a house supported my ma and raised four kids.

thats a fantasy now to the majority of the population ! most have to decide between a home or kids and job securitys a joke,thats why the relative populations droping. you seriously telling me the massive social reforms of the last 20yrs have no effect on the suicide rates? that young men in particular arent affected by stuff like that?

the media will definently talk about health care reform and indeed will latch onto that because it'll avoid having to focus on the wider social consequences of our economic policies . you can bet your arse it'll all be about services and who shouldve done what but feck all about "why?"

i practically gaurenttee it wont address the current state of the country and if they did and found those policies were a factor it'll be a cold day in hell before tony o reilly and dennis obrien let their media outlets push an agenda that'll cost them money.

i should point out i know im comming off like a raving socialist and im not. im mearly pointing out that actions have consequences. we chose this by consistantly voting in people who'd enact these policies and here we are suffering the consequences of it now and hey thats democracy, foresight isnt something people are reknowned with. but in regards to that i dont honestly believe the media would point out the downside of the celtic tiger. particularly if they got leaned on by the owners. hell it took 10yrs to admit there was a downside to immegration and theyre only now acknowleding the housing markets crashing and even that was grudging. and hey i know suicide's been on the up since the 60's and mikes right in that alot of it was covered up in the "death by misadventure" thing to get you in a catholic graveyard. but its gone way up recently beyond what those factor can explain. i mean i know 5 people off the top of my head that's commited suicide
and im sure if i asked around i could find way more who're just tangentally connected to me. none of the 5 i know had a history of mental illness so there's something else going on here . i certainly know the two lads i stopped from commiting suicide were only going to do so after their marriges failed. thats not a mental illness issue. thats a social one.

by the way i thought the whole sucide rate thing in sweden was down to the SAD thing and the effect of vitimin D deprivation on the brain

flogen

We're not here to discuss the causes of suicide, we're here to talk about the way the media does and should (or should not) report on it.

Please get back on topic.

constitutionus

yeah but the point is the causes may be why the media wont report on it. kinda hard to seperate the two. and the fact is its not talked about at all which is very intriguing. people have no problem talking about it so why does the media?

flogen

constitutionus wrote:

yeah but the point is the causes may be why the media wont report on it. kinda hard to seperate the two. and the fact is its not talked about at all which is very intriguing. people have no problem talking about it so why does the media?

By trying to justify your point you're diverting the conversation into something better suited to Humanities - if people want I can move the thread there but I don't think your in depth explanations are necessary if you simply want to give a suggestion as to why the media may not report suicides as much as other forms of death.

I think it's fair to say that we all have our own beliefs about what causes or contributes to suicide in Ireland, but there's no need to debate these finer points in discussing the way the media reports on it.

- on the topic at hand, it strikes me that perhaps when one of these "back issues" was printed the exact circumstances of the deaths were unknown - the father may have found out the details after the fact... if it was the case that the circumstances were unknown I think we can all appreciate a media outlet's apprehension at reporting a death as suicide, on the possibility that it was not.
That's just a theory though and I don't pay enough attention to the issue of suicide in the media to make a fair analysis of the issue - I do remember not so long ago that suicide was the media's flavour of the month, so to speak, with (often overly) detailed stories appearing on a regular basis.

jrey1981

To be fair to constitutionus, he/she does have a point in that there isn't a great deal of reporting that examines how the rapid social and economic change can affect those who may be already somewhat vulnerable.

Emile Durkheim I believe wrote something about anomie...I did begin researching something on the issue last year and I still have the research here somewhere, but I never got round to writing it up.

Unfortunately now I don't have time to do so and I'm not really sure I'd get it published anywhere. And doubly unfortunately I found that several months later a close member of my own family was affected by similar issues.

I think writing about it now could be a bit too close to home in some respects.

DublinWriter

constitutionus wrote:

actually i think its far more insidious than that. i think a thorough examination of suicide in this country would reveal that its the policies that led to the Celtic tiger thats behind alot of it and that's not in the economic interest.

Suicide has always been a big problem in this country, but historically it generally went unreporting for the following reasons.

Traditionally, the Catholic Church wouldn't allow anyone to commit suicide to be buried on consecrated ground because their catechism states that the act of suicide violates the fifth commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' and without confession, the outcome is excommunication.

I'm not sure when this first started to happen, but the Catholic Church now conciders that someone who committed suicide may have repented during the act itself. In this day and age they allow the bodies of those who have committed suicide to be buried on their consecrated ground.

Because of that situtation in the good-hold-catholic-ireland of the previous century, suicide couldn't be reported as such, and would usually be reported as misadventure, or have an open-verdict recorded. There also would be problems with life-insurance (that's why the official line on many of the 'jumpers' from 9/11 was that they slipped, etc, to allow families to collect life-insurance).

This false reporting still goes on today but not to the same extent as in the past and moreso out of compassion for the families left behind.

lostexpectation

tom dunne wrote:

In a thread over on After Hours, the following excellent point was made:

There is a terrible stigma associated with suicide in this country. Anecdotally, it appears to be the young, rural male who sees no escape who seem to be the most susceptible to suicide. I think a massive change in attitude is required, the stigma associated suicide needs to be removed.

Given the race to the bottom that is underway in the media these days, do you think reporters have the balls to report suicides as suicides?

well I think the were trying to say without saying, that was their attempt to be sensitive about suicide to indicate how they died without actually ttyping the word suicide specifically so that they could report it.? (maybe because they woudl think the some family members wouldn't like that reported).

Tom Dunne

constitutionus wrote:

yeah but the point is the causes may be why the media wont report on it. kinda hard to seperate the two. and the fact is its not talked about at all which is very intriguing. people have no problem talking about it so why does the media?

I would disagree that people have no problem talking about it. There is still an air of taboo around it. I would also disagree about the social aspects of suicide. However, to back up what Flogen said, if I wanted to discuss that, I would have started a thread in Humanities.

lostexpectation wrote:

well I think the were trying to say without saying, that was their attempt to be sensitive about suicide to indicate how they died without actually ttyping the word suicide specifically so that they could report it.? (maybe because they woudl think the some family members wouldn't like that reported).

But this is my whole point - the media has no problem reporting on lurid details of public figures, why are they so afraid of upsetting the family of suicide victims? Thankfully, I have never had anyone I know commit suicide, so I can only begin to think what emotions one would go through at a time like that.

The media has no problem reporting a car crash at 3:00am on a Sunday morning, how is reporting that different from reporting a suicide?

Ghupta Yahd

Is it really news worthy if joe average decides to take his own life ? I,m not sure that it is.

The cause of all deaths are recorded on death certificates. We should not depend on the news media for such information.

Tom Dunne

Ghupta Yahd wrote:

The cause of all deaths are recorded on death certificates. We should not depend on the news media for such information.

But do you not accept that the media has a role to play in attempting to erase the taboo around suicide?

Dublin's Finest

Ghupta Yahd wrote:

Is it really news worthy if joe average decides to take his own life ? I,m not sure that it is.

Neither am I. But I do think that the trend of young and predominantly rural males committing suicide is newsworthy. Unfortunately the causes of that trend are incredibly complex and diffuse.

It's the overarching occurence of suicide in Ireland that is the issue - it's just neigh on impossible to answer the question "why do young irishmen kill themselves?" though.

As far as the media having a role to play in breaking the taboo..well, that's tricky. News stories can't do it because there is probably a causal relationship between suicide and society. I suppose the ability to dig further into the root cause of suicide lies with news series (of the kind that Ruadhan MacCormac does for the Irish Times) or Prime Time investigations.

constitutionus

plus it doesnt help when youve got the red tops going "THEY MADE A PACT TO KILL THEMSELVES!!!"

Not exactly conducive to a rational investigation of the subject. personally i see a previous posters point about whether its news worthy to cover a persons suicide and agree with it. but it compares reasonably well to road deaths. in individual case's i'd agree its not worth the media commentating on. but when its on the scale that it is its in the national interest to see if they can do something about it using professional reporting to sensitively highlight the issue so i reckon the media have an obligation to report on the level of it and should investigate the causes just like in road deaths. and avoid the whole salacious angle of it which brings me to the dunne case.

ive hesitated about commentating on that becasue quite honestly i dont know a single thing about it that can be proven but unfortunetly this hasnt stopped rampant reporting in the media speculating on what happened. we havent even heard the coroners report yet but the story is he smothered the kids strangeled his wife and hung himself. now im sorry but its impossible to say that. you can have forensic evidence to imply what may have happened but theres no way to say whats being reported actually happened as fact. and to be honest if find the whole thing a little distasteful not to mention goulish. in my opinion the focus should be on why the event happened not the intricate details of how and indeed why its becoming more common. this isnt the first time someone who commited suicide took their kids with them and thats far more disturbing.

i think thats the role the media should be playing. theyve isolated drink and speed among the main reasons why people die on the roads so we should be getting similar investigation why people take their own lives instead of just throwing up mental illness as an excuse. sure its in there but its not the only reason.

J.S. Pill

A while back a young fella who lives not too far from me died at a party. The dogs on the street knew he OD'd but the local media simply stated that 'he failed to wake up' after a night socialising.

Was this a case of sensitivity to the family trumping the public's interest to know the facts of the incident? No, it was simply a case that the cause of death had not been formally established - Simple as.

In these cases, once the cause of death is established formally, the media tend not to make too much of a fanfare about it - if they report it at all. This is where media sensitivity is displayed*. It can be argued that when sensitivity is displayed in this way it usually reflects, to some extent, the taboos surrounding this issue but its important to distinguish this aspect from cases where the cause of death is not reported in the first instance.


Drug use doesn't have quite the same taboo as suicide so we can reasonably argue from this example that its the need for accurate reporting in sensitive situations as opposed to some conspiricy to keep suicide taboo and mask the harsh consaquences of prosperity that often explains how suicide is reported.

*except when its a high profile or sensational death of course

lostexpectation

tom dunne wrote:

But this is my whole point - the media has no problem reporting on lurid details of public figures, why are they so afraid of upsetting the family of suicide victims? Thankfully, I have never had anyone I know commit suicide, so I can only begin to think what emotions one would go through at a time like that.

The media has no problem reporting a car crash at 3:00am on a Sunday morning, how is reporting that different from reporting a suicide?

I don't think their deaths should have been reported at all certainly not frontpage news.

r3nu4l

A good few years ago now The Star newspaper (I think) featured a full front-page photograph of the body of a young man floating in the water (The Liffey, I think). The ehadline screamed about the tragedy of young male suicide.

The paper was lambasted across the board for their insensitivity in their treatment of the subject matter. As it happens I totally disagreed with the publication of that photo, it was very poor taste and a senstaionalist way of trying to sell newspapers wrapped in the cloak of 'highlighting' this dreadful issue. Highlighting the issue of suicide can be done in better ways.

I think that papers should highlight where a suicide has been committed by noting the fact in the story and treating it sensitively. Phrases such as 'a note was found' or 'it is believed s/he took their own life' are enough for everyone to know what happened without making a sensation of the fact.

Several Sunday newspapers over the years have run stories on the problem of young male suicide, most focusing on the problem in Northern Ireland in particular.

This is definitely a tough issue for any journalist and editor but in my view, not one to be shied away from but instead, tackled head-on.

constitutionus

i agree wholeheartedly with r3nu4l . particularly in how its tackled in the north who have a much better record. but in fairness as well what are the media actually doing down here to try and mitigate the problem? just today theres been the announcement of yet another road saftey campaign yet when it comes to suicide all we hear is "ring the Samaritans".

what we need is a genuine investigation to the phenomenon as a whole and to highlight the issues beyond the easy "mental illness" scapegoat or ,what were currently getting at the moment ,salacious intrusion.
i want to know why people are killing themselves in such numbers, not how the families are being torn apart after the event in regards to the funeral arrangements of the deceased's as in the dunne case. thats none of my business. anymore than i'd demand to see the decapitated head of a car crash victim in the interest in pursuing the causes of deaths on the road.

i remember that photo about the young man in the liffey. i think one of the problems with that was they hadnt even infomed the family before it was splashed across the front pages and agree entirely that that was disgraceful but you can contrast it with a similar story that year about a bridge down the country (i want to say cavan but im not certain it could be drogheda) where in several people had thrown themselves into the river on an almost weekly basis. no pictures , no names and no interviews of families. just a well done professional report about a very disturbing issue. if memory serves it was around 6 or 7 people and the council were now worried the bridge would become a focal point for the areas potentially suicidal population.

there can be good coverage of this issue but unfortunetly its not done often and i do have to ask why seeing as self elected profesionals in the media feel authoritative on every other issue from drug taking to casual sex. surely someone must be able to tackle it

jrey1981

Good points constitutionus and r3n4ul. I think that to explore the issue in detail, I'd need at least 2000 words and I'm not sure any newspaper would devote that much space to it.

I wholeheartedly would be against the issue being sensationalised. That's just too cheap and tacky and it's a sign of bad journalism if there's no other lead story around than that.

La La

every newspaper has its own agenda - the paper i work for isn't keen on reporting suicides. alot of it has to do with legalities - 'suicide' is a term handed down by the coroner only and therefore cannot be reported as such until he/she has done so.....by which time the story may be dead.
the country in which i live sees hundreds and hundreds of suicides, mostly jumpers - and the local chinese press love it. there is one paper in particular with a penchant for the raspberry jam - to the extent that they have been known to splash with a blow-by-blow account of the fall from the leap to the end result. and i dont just mean in writing - they use the pictures. disgusting.
i find that kind of reporting abhorrent, but the laws here allow for that kind of coverage, and some papers use their right to the full. my emplyoers are less inclined, and often we tend to sideline suicides unless, someone with local importance like this very well-known guy, dies. then it runs as a splash.
personally, after three years in this business, i have yet to make up my own mind about where I stand with regard to the reporting of a suicide...i would imagine i'll have a firmer stance with experience. all comes down to news judgement and societal norms in many ways.