Suicide and the Media?

dreamers75

Strange one suppose best for After Hours, in recent times the Media has decided to blanket ban any reporting of Suicides in this country.

I know of quite a few people who have topped themselves in the last 2 years all young around the 14-18 age all in secondary schools. (one today which noone will ever hear about )

Why has the media just stopped reporting it? Is reporting it not hightlighting the issue and giving people who may lean towards it some sort of reason not to?

its like the sweep it under the carpet but by doing that it means possibly one more will do it. calling it a "tragedy" just doest work, call it as it is and it may save one life in the future.

Jesus Wept

A line of thought is that reporting of suicides lead to more suicides.
I imagine this is why it is under reported.
Whether there is merit to this line of thought or not, I don't know.

Not reporting it and having sh1it mental health care and attitudes is certainly not the way forward.

jumpguy

The-Rigger wrote: »

A line of thought is that reporting of suicides lead to more suicides.
I imagine this is why it is under reported.
Whether there is merit to this line of thought or not, I don't know.

Not reporting it and having sh1it mental health care and attitudes is certainly not the way forward.

Either that, or it's deemed disrespectful.

Excellent response to the problem - ignore it and maybe it'll go away. :rolleyes:

Oranage2

There should deffinetly be information about mental health - Suicide is the saddest thing I've ever seen!

DailyBlaa

They should be reporting it, more dead due to suicide than road accidents. Yet all they they do is bang on about how we should be doing more to stop deaths on the roads, e.g NCT, speed cameras, etc.

I have lost a two friends over the years due to it. It is true what they say you can't tell. One friend I only talked to him a few hours before he died. We were planning going to a local event in a few days time. There were no apparent signs what an awful shame.

foxinsox

I would imagine that the media might be following the wishes of the bereaved family. That could be one scenario.

or is not always clear that a death was a suicide until an inquest.

Suicide has happened a lot and I'd be pretty sure that everybody has had personal experience of it in some form or another.

Whether the media do or do not publish it as such, I personally don't think would have any significant impact on the numbers.

faw1tytowers

Hmm this is bizzarre. In the area I live in 3 youths have committed suicide in as many months and before that many others. But since then A polititian Roche(whos son sadly was one of the mentioned) has been trying to campaign about the stigma of suicide. I have noticed more signs and 'help' cards in local shops. But this I am shocked at. Maybe it is true though that what is happening is it is becoming a trend and less publicity of actual suicides might be better?

dreamers75

I dont agree with the hiding it part? fairly sure everyone here knows someone or knows of someone affected by it.

But yet its been deemed unreportable by the media, last one i read about was some alleged famous guy in a field with a shotgun, they called it a tragedy?

stupidusername

Don't think it's a matter of disrespect, I'm fairly sure that it's not reported because of this idea it's going to lead to more. thought I'm also fairly sure this idea has been, what's the word... debunked..? I think if it was to be reported more it would highlight what a problem depression actually is in this country and would mean more people could talk about it, and probably lead to less suicides over all.

Yakult

It should be tackled in school first off. Not once when I was in secondry school did anyone from Mental health Ireland (dont know official name) visit the school to talk about it. No posters, nothing.
Its like they are too afraid to approach the subject which sets a terrible example i.e young people not being able to talk about it.

Maybe its different for other schools.

As for the media reporting suicides? I think it would be a insensitive. Maybe they should be promoting help lines or just encouraging people to try and talk.

dreamers75

stupidusername wrote: »

Don't think it's a matter of disrespect, I'm fairly sure that it's not reported because of this idea it's going to lead to more. thought I'm also fairly sure this idea has been, what's the word... debunked..? I think if it was to be reported more it would highlight what a problem depression actually is in this country and would mean more people could talk about it, and probably lead to less suicides over all.

Along with that maybe it would show the potential suicidee the devastation they about to bring to their family < this part i think would help if reported in the media.

I think families think if one of or their own commits suicide its their fault and feel shamed by it.

geetar

i think not reporting it is also out of respect for the families. my extended family experienced a suicide, and the media was an absolute disgrace. it stayed in the papers for far too long, and made it very painful for everyone.

stupidusername

Yakult wrote: »

It should be tackled in school first off. Not once when I was in secondry school did anyone from Mental health Ireland (dont know official name) visit the school to talk about it. No posters, nothing.
Its like they are too afraid to approach the subject which sets a terrible example i.e young people not being able to talk about it.

Maybe its different for other schools.

As for the media reporting suicides? I think it would be a insensitive. Maybe they should be promoting help lines or just encouraging people to try and talk.

I don't ever remember being spoken to about mental health. sure I didn't know what depression was until I was diagnosed myself. same as sexual education, never a word said to us in school about anything.

dreamers75 wrote: »

Along with that maybe it would show the potential suicidee the devastation they about to bring to their family < this part i think would help if reported in the media.

I think families think if one of or their own commits suicide its their fault and feel shamed by it.

Well I don't agree with this but yeah ok. I mean how the person is feeling is the most important part here, not how many people they're going to affect.

galwayrush

They went a step further in Germany some time back, they banned public funerals for suicides, apparently they had a very high number of people taking their own lives so they decided that public funerals were somehwhat making the victims into a type of hero , even if it was only for a day. After they banned the public funerals, the numbers dropped significantly.

Mrmoe

I would say most often they can't report the cause of death until it is confirmed by a coroner unless it is exceedingly obvious. When they do confirm it it usually isn't newsworthy for them to report it.:mad:

im invisible

i remember 10 or more years ago a friend of a friend, and a cousin of mine, commited suicide close enough to the same time. they didnt know each other. I heard about 500 people a year kill themselves, thats around 10 a week, we never hear of the vast majority of these, and we never will

hondasam

galwayrush wrote: »

They went a step further in Germany some time back, they banned public funerals for suicides, apparently they had a very high number of people taking their own lives so they decided that public funerals were somehwhat making the victims into a type of hero , even if it was only for a day. After they banned the public funerals, the numbers dropped significantly.

I think this would be a very good idea if it happened here.

dreamers75

stupidusername wrote: »

Well I don't agree with this but yeah ok. I mean how the person is feeling is the most important part here, not how many people they're going to affect.

from my knowledge people do from feeling alone, if they seen the devastation they about to cause they wouldnt feel alone.

Im aware there may be circumstantial issues at the time they do it.

I would have strong feelings towards not doing it.

Pauleta

I think the whole thing comes from the Bridgend Suicides in Wales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgend_suicide_incidents

foxinsox

The topic of this thread made me wonder about it..

So I found this from World Health Organisation (WHO)

http://cebmh.warne.ox.ac.uk/csr/images/WHO%20media%20guidelines.pdf

See page 5

stupidusername

im invisible wrote: »

i remember 10 or more years ago a friend of a friend, and a cousin of mine, commited suicide close enough to the same time. they didnt know each other. I heard about 500 people a year kill themselves, thats around 10 a week, we never hear of the vast majority of these, and we never will

and still there isn't wide spread knowledge about depression / mental illnesses or about the treatments or help that's available. I mean does anyone here know if you did suffer from depression, what would you do? What services do you think are available? What are your options? I think it's about time Ireland came out of this era of hiding how you feel. nothing will get better just by putting some ads up every few months saying things like 'it's your mental health, look after it'.

Jesus Wept

galwayrush wrote: »

They went a step further in Germany some time back, they banned public funerals for suicides, apparently they had a very high number of people taking their own lives so they decided that public funerals were somehwhat making the victims into a type of hero , even if it was only for a day. After they banned the public funerals, the numbers dropped significantly.

I think people have a right to a public funeral if it was their wish or families tbh.
It's a pretty backward way to tackle the problem.

Rather than wasting time in school teaching children about useless sh1t most of the time, they ought to be taught about life, and how to live and handle what it will throw at you.

Standman

Seems the only way a suicide gets reported is if they kill a whole bunch of other people first, don't see the media self censoring when those kind of things happen.

stupidusername

yeah, I mean obviously I can't say for sure how many, but I can't imagine there are that many people that kill themselves that think they'll be seen as a hero etc etc. I find it hard to believe disallowing public funerals for these people would make any significant difference.

Millicent

The-Rigger wrote: »

A line of thought is that reporting of suicides lead to more suicides.
I imagine this is why it is under reported.
Whether there is merit to this line of thought or not, I don't know.

Not reporting it and having sh1it mental health care and attitudes is certainly not the way forward.

There's been a few cases reported of the cluster effect of suicides. It surprised me but it's a valid phenomenon and interested reading. Good article here.

hondasam

I'm not saying no public funeral just smaller family and close friends funerals.

Aoifey!

On the one hand it could help other people who are thinking of commiting suicide by showing the effect it has on others and that there are others options out there.

But then again, there is also the matter of family and friends not wanting it to be reported and having to see it on every paper. Even if the family give permission, friends and loved ones who are not immediate family may not want it to be everywhere.

Recently there was a case of a young woman who commited suicide, her boyfriend then commited suicide soon after by her grave. This was plastered on local papers and the media took advantage of it by talking how it was so romantic. I know a friend of these people. They did not consider it romantic, they considered it a horrible loss if 2 of their close friends.

stupidusername

Millicent wrote: »

There's been a few cases reported of the cluster effect of suicides. It surprised me but it's a valid phenomenon and interested reading. Good article here.

I'll have a look at that tomorrow. but right well let's say that it is a genuine concern, is it a matter of numbers then? I mean if the amount of people committing suicide because of 'advertising' suicide numbers every year is less than the amount of people saved by 'advertising' the figures, is it worth it? hard to put that in a way that doesn't offend people, but I hope ye get what I'm getting at.

Millicent

stupidusername wrote: »

I'll have a look at that tomorrow. but right well let's say that it is a genuine concern, is it a matter of numbers then? I mean if the amount of people committing suicide because of 'advertising' suicide numbers every year is less than the amount of people saved by 'advertising' the figures, is it worth it? hard to put that in a way that doesn't offend people, but I hope ye get what I'm getting at.

Oh, I absolutely get what you're saying.


But, from the link (American study):

"Suicides following the exposure to someone's death by suicide, was about two to four times higher among 15- to 19-year-olds than [in] other age groups," Gould says.

That's an absolutely shocking figure. Then, when you consider the Brigend case that Pauleta linked to, you have 24 suicides in a small area, that may be down to this cluster effect.

While I believe mental health education is really important and I'd hate to think that suicide was being stigmatised, I can actually see the reasoning for this decision, and I don't say that lightly as a wannabe journalist. Of course, that is contingent on whether the mumbers would be more with media coverage or without, but I'd expect with the cluster phenomenon, it'd definitely be more.

CluelessGirl

I think a massive impact would be for survivors of suicide to speak out.

Are they glad they survived?

What was going on in their minds at the time.

Etc........

I think that would be helpful.

I know it would be for me.

Emotional health really needs to be tackled.

faw1tytowers

Aoifey! wrote: »

On the one hand it could help other people who are thinking of commiting suicide by showing the effect it has on others and that there are others options out there.

But then again, there is also the matter of family and friends not wanting it to be reported and having to see it on every paper. Even if the family give permission, friends and loved ones who are not immediate family may not want it to be everywhere.

Recently there was a case of a young woman who commited suicide, her boyfriend then commited suicide soon after by her grave. This was plastered on local papers and the media took advantage of it by talking how it was so romantic. I know a friend of these people. They did not consider it romantic, they considered it a horrible loss if 2 of their close friends.

LIke the case in our village, friend died, 3 days later best friend dies a few weeks later girlfriend dies, all suicide all hangings.... They set up facebook sites of how they are holding hands and happy forever together now. FAR FROM IT, People need to get real about suicide.

Buceph

Standman wrote: »

Seems the only way a suicide gets reported is if they kill a whole bunch of other people first, don't see the media self censoring when those kind of things happen.

A lot of doctors have called for it. There was a guy on Charlie Brooker's show talking about how the media handle these events, and he says they're acting very dangerously as it can encourage copycat behaviour by glorifying the act.

As someone said, the Bridgend suicides were a big part of how the media now act. But the thinking behind it has been around for a lot longer.

MagicSean

faw1tytowers wrote: »

Hmm this is bizzarre. In the area I live in 3 youths have committed suicide in as many months and before that many others. But since then A polititian Roche(whos son sadly was one of the mentioned) has been trying to campaign about the stigma of suicide. I have noticed more signs and 'help' cards in local shops. But this I am shocked at. Maybe it is true though that what is happening is it is becoming a trend and less publicity of actual suicides might be better?

If you are from where I am thinking of those youths all were connected and didn't learn about the previous suicides from the media.

faw1tytowers

k_mac wrote: »

If you are from where I am thinking of those youths all were connected and didn't learn about the previous suicides from the media.

Yes you are correct all connected....

It baffles me how someone can go through seeing the effects suicide causes and then to follow suit.

I am a suicide Survivor.... and know survivors and I just cant understand this kind.

hondasam

faw1tytowers wrote: »

Yes you are correct all connected....

It baffles me how someone can go through seeing the effects suicide causes and then to follow suit.

I am a suicide Survivor.... and know survivors and I just cant understand this kind.

heartbreak and guilt can be hard to live with. No one knows what anyone is thinking at any given time.

Millicent

hondasam wrote: »

heartbreak and guilt can be hard to live with. No one knows what anyone is thinking at any given time.

Couple with that that teenage (I'm assuming they were teenage?) relationships tend to be more intense than adult ones, so for an already troubled teenager, losing a close friend who they identified with could make them feel like life is not worth living.

faw1tytowers

hondasam wrote: »

heartbreak and guilt can be hard to live with. No one knows what anyone is thinking at any given time.

Oh totally, I get that, no disrespect.. as I say I have been there. I literally mean I cant understand it though how this becomes the "best route" in such case where time has gone by and thought has been taken.

hondasam

faw1tytowers wrote: »

Oh totally, I get that, no disrespect.. as I say I have been there. I literally mean I cant understand it though how this becomes the "best route" in such case where time has gone by and thought has been taken.

Depends in how much time has gone by, I don't think anyone can understand it. I suppose if we could understand it our questions would be answered.

ShagNastii

Am I the only one who thinks that the whole issue of bringing awareness to suicide is a whole different story to that of highlighting road safety.

I hate to seem insensitive but I think there is only so much you can do to prevent suicide. As we all know it is a huge epidemic nationwide (especially amoungst young males). In my home village I can name many people who have commited suicide. Everytime there is a death my mother always tells me and my siblings "not to go down that road" and that "there is always someone to talk to". It might be the fact that I've never been suicidal but is it not (and again I hate to make it sound so willy nilly) blatantly obivious that topping yourself is stupid thing to do.

I know about AWARE and helplines for depression do these people not know about them? They get good press from the media are also almost weekly talked about in papers and on radio.

I don't want anyone to jump on my post as being out of order but I find the whole issue a bit head scratching.

Like somebody commented, it is often reported on the ront of local paper but suicide is never mention. If say this was to change and all details were given

i.e. The male shot himself with a pistol which he found in the family home. He guy had just split with is long term girlfriend and was having drinks with his friends in the local bar.

How does this make the report better, re: reporting the suicide?

mikemac

Sitec wrote: »

a lot of road deaths are underwritten as accidents when some are suicides.
.

I agree it happens.
However it's pretty much impossible to prove.

And even then it's not realy fair to speculate on.

I posted on another forum I used to work nights and would drive home while wrecked tired, yes I was a fool!
But if I feel asleep at the wheel on a straight piece of road I wonder would people say "oh, just left the perfectly straight road, no bend and perfect dry road conditions, possible suicide??"

So best to say nothing unless the gardai or coroner have it in their report. And so the media waits

wild_cat

ShagNastii wrote: »

Am I the only one who thinks that the whole issue of bringing awareness to suicide is a whole different story to that of highlighting road safety.

I hate to seem insensitive but I think there is only so much you can do to prevent suicide. As we all know it is a huge epidemic nationwide (especially amoungst young males). In my home village I can name many people who have commited suicide. Everytime there is a death my mother always tells me and my siblings "not to go down that road" and that "there is always someone to talk to". It might be the fact that I've never been suicidal but is it not (and again I hate to make it sound so willy nilly) blatantly obivious that topping yourself is stupid thing to do.

I know about AWARE and helplines for depression do these people not know about them? They get good press from the media are also almost weekly talked about in papers and on radio.

I don't want anyone to jump on my post as being out of order but I find the whole issue a bit head scratching.

Like somebody commented, it is often reported on the ront of local paper but suicide is never mention. If say this was to change and all details were given

i.e. The male shot himself with a pistol which he found in the family home. He guy had just split with is long term girlfriend and was having drinks with his friends in the local bar.

How does this make the report better, re: reporting the suicide?

When your suicidal your thinking that the world is better off without you and it wouldn't matter if you had never existed in the first place thus saving yourself isn't high on the list of priorities.

Common as...

The-Rigger wrote: »

Rather than wasting time in school teaching children about useless sh1t most of the time, they ought to be taught about life, and how to live and handle what it will throw at you.

+1 Considering the amount of people who take their own lives in this country, I think the education system is completely ****ed up, rather than educating people to have fulfilled and happy lives, its only interested in results, exams and filling young peoples heads with knowledge that will be of no use to them in later life.The success of an education system should be measured by how happy in their daily lives the people that have come through it are.
In this case the Irish system is a complete failure.

ShagNastii

Yep I know that, but how is christs name can we deal with this? When someone is like this AWARE or the Samaritians can't call them.

faw1tytowers

I think the fact is when it comes to suicide its end of road..... so its the before suicidal thoughts enter head that has to be tackled. I know people who have had counselling and still done it, people who were medicated and still done it, people with families, people who did it over money worries, or on a whim cos drunk or whatever etc etc..... its our coping mechanism that is the issue..... is it not? There has to be something underlying that makes people press auto destruct. Life is never that bad..

reap-a-rat

The-Rigger wrote: »

A line of thought is that reporting of suicides lead to more suicides.
I imagine this is why it is under reported.
Whether there is merit to this line of thought or not, I don't know.

Not reporting it and having sh1it mental health care and attitudes is certainly not the way forward.

stupidusername wrote: »

Don't think it's a matter of disrespect, I'm fairly sure that it's not reported because of this idea it's going to lead to more. thought I'm also fairly sure this idea has been, what's the word... debunked..? I think if it was to be reported more it would highlight what a problem depression actually is in this country and would mean more people could talk about it, and probably lead to less suicides over all.

geetar wrote: »

i think not reporting it is also out of respect for the families. my extended family experienced a suicide, and the media was an absolute disgrace. it stayed in the papers for far too long, and made it very painful for everyone.

Buceph wrote: »

A lot of doctors have called for it. There was a guy on Charlie Brooker's show talking about how the media handle these events, and he says they're acting very dangerously as it can encourage copycat behaviour by glorifying the act.

As someone said, the Bridgend suicides were a big part of how the media now act. But the thinking behind it has been around for a lot longer.

I have to agree that sometimes the media don't report suicides out of respect for the family. Obviously, sometimes they do and are often inappropriate, which gains negative publicity for the paper/show and probably discourages them from doing it again.

I also feel though that if suicides were widely reported, potential victims would be "encouraged" at the apparent success of it. They might research different ways of doing it, and when suicides are reported they may figure out that one way is more surefire than others they have researched themselves.

Just my thoughts on it. Its such a sad subject.

kumate_champ07

galwayrush wrote: »

They went a step further in Germany some time back, they banned public funerals for suicides, apparently they had a very high number of people taking their own lives so they decided that public funerals were somehwhat making the victims into a type of hero , even if it was only for a day. After they banned the public funerals, the numbers dropped significantly.

was this before the Berlin Wall came down? East Germany had a very high suicide rate(possibly highest in Europe/World), it was called 'self murder', they stopped publishing the stats because it didnt look so good for their rulers

vinchick

There is research which has shown a strong link between the media reporting of suicides and an increased number of people dying by suicide after a report is published. There have been a number of factors identified which increases the likelihood of somebody dying by suicide after reading an article. These include reports on how and why, the age, gender, and occupation of the person. Basically things that a person can relate to and get ideas from.

There is a call for the media to stop reporting on individual cases in order to prevent further deaths.

In case of suicide awareness campaigns there are ways to run them to avoid this trap but they have to be very careful to avoid the influencing factors.

Daegerty

DailyBlaa wrote: »

They should be reporting it, more dead due to suicide than road accidents. Yet all they they do is bang on about how we should be doing more to stop deaths on the roads, e.g NCT, speed cameras, etc.

I have lost a two friends over the years due to it. It is true what they say you can't tell. One friend I only talked to him a few hours before he died. We were planning going to a local event in a few days time. There were no apparent signs what an awful shame.

2 ( or is it 3) times as many people top themselves as die in car accidents.

Yakult

Daegerty wrote: »

2 ( or is it 3) times as many people top themselves as die in car accidents.

Source?

ShagNastii

faw1tytowers wrote: »

I think the fact is when it comes to suicide its end of road..... so its the before suicidal thoughts enter head that has to be tackled. I know people who have had counselling and still done it, people who were medicated and still done it, people with families, people who did it over money worries, or on a whim cos drunk or whatever etc etc..... its our coping mechanism that is the issue..... is it not? There has to be something underlying that makes people press auto destruct. Life is never that bad..

+1 well put across post.

It only takes five minutes of utter madness for someone it kill themselves no one can do anything to stop it.

strobe

galwayrush wrote: »

They went a step further in Germany some time back, they banned public funerals for suicides, apparently they had a very high number of people taking their own lives so they decided that public funerals were somehwhat making the victims into a type of hero , even if it was only for a day. After they banned the public funerals, the numbers dropped significantly.

I would need some sort of official statistics before I would believe that. I'm not saying it isn't true or anything. It just sounds very makey uppy. So I want some evidence before I accept it. The whole 'suicide is contagious' thing.

========================================================

I can imagine it is the gutter press having a tiny bit of humanity though, in terms of it being under reported......