Reporting of suicide (or not)

mike65

As you may know a mother committed suicide taking the life of her baby in Co Cork yesterday, however if you were to read/listen to reports of the incident you'll proberly not of seen or heard the S word, with reports limiting themselves to tragedy/drowning and a comment from the Gardai that they were not treating the deaths as suspicious or looking for anyone else.

Does the reluctance to descibe what happened using clear concise terms speak of a culture thats still subconsiously "olde Catholic Ireland"

Should media not speak clearly and without fear about all social issues? We all seem to have long got over the hump regarding child abuse for example. Is suicide still taboo?

Mike.

santosubito

Indeed they should. It's a disgrace that they don't.

As an aside, I did a story about that young man from Walkinstown who killed himself after meeting someone on the internet and some group (Headline, perhaps?) wrote to me and others to give out. They argued we were showing others how to do it...

Ibjiba

I think what you bring up has a lot to do with culture. Partly I think it is a mentality that you don't speak about such things, but I also (hope) think it has a lot to do with respect for the family. The relatives/friends it does little good to hear the S-word repeated over and over, it will be harder to progress from there. Had this been in another country, reports would have been different for sure (for better or for worse).

cushtac

The press has no problems writing about suicide, last week the suicide of a young man made the front pages of at least three papers. Maybe the Gardaí, papers & everyone else don't want to call it suicide in this case until all the facts are in & the coroner returns a verdict.

Ray777

I think it would be a bit crass for the main evening news bulletins to use a "SUICIDE" headline just hours after the event and before any official verdict has been recorded. The euphemisms used in such situations are fairly clear anyway: "Gardai are not seeking anybody else in relation to this tragic incident" is pretty unambiguous, tbh.

simu

Well, on the 9 o'clock bulletin, they also coyly stated that anyone upset or otherwise affected by the issue in question ought to call the Samaritans. I thought it was very strange. Time to start calling a spade a spade.

delta_bravo

mike65 wrote:

Does the reluctance to descibe what happened using clear concise terms speak of a culture thats still subconsiously "olde Catholic Ireland"
Mike.

I dont think so. They announced that the gardai were treating the case where the man in his 40's brutally murdered his elderly parents and then killed himself as a murder/suicide. Perhaps the case of the woman in Cork was not fully clarified at the time and they didnt want to misreport (eg. David Irvine style)

mike65

Hmmm, I was listening to Morning Ireland and thier 'crime' correspondent Paul Reynolds spend about 5 mins dancing around the issue before he suddenly declared it a case of murder/suicide, sadly the rest of the Morning Ireland crew did'nt take thier cue from that statement of the bleedin' obvious and continued to parrot the offical Gardai line of 'tragedy'

Maybe at some latter point RTE changed tack when they could'nt ignore what was in front of them.

Mike.

jdivision

Media reluctant to use the word suicide because it can cause copycat incidents. Certain ones do do it though, the Indo and Star don't give a s*** about it for example.

haz

jdivision wrote:

Media reluctant to use the word suicide because it can cause copycat incidents. Certain ones do do it though, the Indo and Star don't give a s*** about it for example.

There is a small cabal of self-appointed "suicidologists", although they are mostly third-rate psychologists and academic non-entities, who are very protective of any mention of suicide and all the words used about it. Most papers go along with it, including all the nonsense taboos and misguided conventions they have established - driven more by sensitivity to the bereaved relatives than by practical measures to reduce suicide. Sexuality, orientation and relationship difficulties (that might, God forbid, imply blame) are some of these. The so-called "copycat effect" inevitably refers to a single study claiming an increase in overdoses after an episode of Casualty back in the 1990s.

mike65

jdivision you have an appropriate name!

Mike.

DoubleJoe7

It depends on the level of media.

The national papers had no problem reporting that case of the mother and child in Co. Cork as suicide-indeed The Examiner went all out, and over the top in the language they used IMO. Descriptive passages outlining essentially what the journalist himself imagined how the suicide was carried out is irresponsible, unethical and sensationalist.
To write as if you were there or saw it happening is an insult to the family of the deceased.

Anyway, back to my original point.
I reported on that case for a local paper. I don't recall, but I don't think the word suicide was used. However, upon reading the article I think it would be impossible to not realise it had happened. We just didn't go at it in the blunt way the national papers did.

The reason?

The national papers don't need the co operation of the local people. We cover everything, from headline grabbing deaths to cake sales. We have a presence in the community and don't need to provoke or anger them. Essentially we need their co operation to work at this level. It's not shying away from the issue; it's treating it with the sensitivity such a delicate matter deserves.

Tha Gopher

Ive always found that when a father kills his kids and himself, its a murder suicide. When a mother does it, its a non specific tragedy. Its as if all men who di it are evil and heartless, mothers who do it are confused or depressed.

DoubleJoe7

Actually that's a very good point.

J.S. Pill

This subject was discussed here a few months back. The local papers certainly appear to be walking on egshells when covering suicide. Same goes for drug related deaths. The local rags in my area will never specify the cause of death in such instances, its always something like 'failed to wake up after a party' or 'died at a friends house' which are pretty transparent really.

Tha Gopher wrote:

Ive always found that when a father kills his kids and himself, its a murder suicide. When a mother does it, its a non specific tragedy. Its as if all men who di it are evil and heartless, mothers who do it are confused or depressed.

Very interesting point. Does anyone want to thrall through some archives to back this up!? Too sleepy now...

mike65

the Gophers point was raised in a fashion on the RTEs radio luchtime news,
a woman who burnt down her house with her family in it (having taken out insurance against same happening a few weeks earlier) was given 5 life terms suspended. It seems the 'got away' with it as the family have forgiven her dispite nearly being toasted and she's in therapy.

Gavin Jennings asked a trickcylist if a man would have got away with a suspended. Unfortunatly due to traffic noise I never heard the reply but its online later www.rte.ie

Mike.

TheNog

I don't think the gardai use of the words "tragedy" or "we are not looking for anyone else" has anything got to do with suicide being taboo. They are being respectful towards the family of the deceased and not compounding their grief. The gardai do have communications with the family after the incident right up to the inquest. This involves advising them on support groups available and also to advise them on the procedure of the coroners court. Anyway immediately after an autopsy must be carried out to determine death as part of an investigation. The Gardai are not experts in medical procedures or the likes and shouldn't elaborate in public.

However some of the national papers who use the lines "madman kills family then himself" or uses any other type of reporting which blatantly paints a picture of a person as a stone cold evil killer doesn't help at all. In nearly all cases people who commit suicide have mental health problems and should be cared for, not ignored and beaten down such as what happens. Yet these same papers always say "we are highlighting the problem of suicide". They are not. They are only making suicide taboo but in a different way than days of old.

nlgbbbblth

Every so often a national newspaper will publish an article on suicide. The article usually quotes statistics and there is a certain amount of hand-wringing in relation to 'the stigma of suicide' / 'facing up to suicide' / 'not sweeping suicide under the carpet'. The overriding message is that the root causes of suicide should be addressed and people should confront rather than deny.

Which brings me to the media's reporting of suicide. If a person dies accidentally, of natural causes, as a result of an assault or is murdered their death will be reported as such. However if they commit suicide the reports are inevitably fudged with banal and intelligence-insulting euphemisms such as 'not looking for anyone else in connection', 'fell in front of train', 'entered the river' etc. Frequently a coroner's report will state a verdict of accidental death when it was anything but.

The reason for such reporting is usually given as 'to protect the family' etc. But how can a family face up to a suicide if nobody will dare speak the dreaded 's word'.

Blatant hypocrisy - On one hand we have the media bemoaning increasing suicide numbers and complaining about people have their heads in the sand about it while simultaneously refusing to tackle the practical issue head on and print the actual facts when it comes to reporting one. This double standard filters downwards to ordinary citizens who will speak in hushed tones about the deceased and rarely mention the why and how of his/her death.

My personal experience in this regard stems from when my uncle committed suicide in 1983. At no stage throughout the years did anybody in my family admit that he took his own life and it was only much later that I accidentally discovered the truth.

In summary all suicides should be 'outed' i.e. reported as such.

Any fudging of the issue is irresponsible journalism.

aidan_walsh

nglbbblth wrote:

But how can a family face up to a suicide if nobody will dare speak the dreaded 's word'.

Thats an issue for the family and those close to them, not the press or the public.