Suicide and the news

[Deleted member 1768]

Wonder why we do not hear much about suicide? Read this:

Best practice suicide reporting tips

www.samaritans.org

 

[MeltingHeart]

Wonder why we do not hear much about suicide? Read this:

Best practice suicide reporting tips

www.samaritans.org

There is the worry if suicide contagion-like with the Bridgend situation - a lot of people considered the media to have triggered more suicides...that's just one example.

 

[charlie_z]

To be honest, overall I'm ok with the guidelines set out by this news agency. I don't like censorship and I think it's often terribly abused by the mainstream media. But as someone who worked as a teacher for many years, I know that for some people, especially younger students, sensationalizing another's choice to end their life can sometimes trigger impulsive behavior. If/when I choose to end my life, I want to be sure it's a well-reasoned and well and well thought out act. This entails a reasonable amount of time to prepare your method, how you want your possessions to be disposed of, want if any kind of service you want for family and friends, and other sundry things. What do you think?

 

[Fragile]

There are plenty of reasons why we don't hear much about suicide related news or even statistics.

one of the main ones is because some countries and locales make efforts to censor anything suicide related because of "copycats" and mostly because of prolifers getting outraged at the mere word being spoken, but just like when prohibitions happen, people always find a way to get that knowledge and resources.

 

[Stan]

If the reality of statistics are true, then there would be multiple reports per day in the media. I noticed that it has to be a headliner grabber to be reported in the UK these days.

 

[Darkhaven]

I live in a country with only 10,5M people.
We mostly only hear about suicides when it includes a serious crime worth reporting commited before the suicide. Homicides for example.
Domestic Violence, a serious problem here, is ususally the case. "Husband shoots and kills wife and then shoots himself" is the average occurence.
Besides those cases, a suicide needs to either be very gruesome or conducted in a mysterious or unconventional way in order to be reported in the main news outlets and media corporations.
I'm sure that those smaller regional or even town newspapers probably get into more detail in their obituary sections. But very few people read those and most of them are old ladys.
As people already stated, they don't want it to spread and give motivation to other vulnerable people.

 

[sleepy dog]

From that page - "Approximately 90 per cent of people who die by suicide have a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health problem at the time of death."

That is an absolute lie. Its a myth. When researching methods I found this out. They are, as usual, trying to make suicide seem "crazy", like only "crazy" people do it. Suicide is also under reported by coroners and medical examiners in the US. Many are reported as "manner of death undetermined". Most of them surprisingly have no medical training at all in this country.

 

[BlueWidow]

What I find odd is we don't hear as much about suicide, but when we have a mass shooting here in the US, the news media will cover it for 24 hours a day for days and days. They'll interview all the shooter's family and friends and agonize over what the person's motive was and so forth. I always wonder who the hell cares what the person's motive was?! They chose to take another person's life that they didn't have a right to take.
I don't really care what their motive was.

Or occasionally when a celebrity dies, they cover it for days and days, such as they did with Michael Jackson. I have nothing against Michael Jackson, but I got so sick of all the coverage of his death, especially when they were trying to show pictures of his body on the TV. That's just gruesome!

And then there are all the serial killers. They have endless coverage of serial killers and all sorts of shows and series about them and what motivates them and so forth.

The US media is just sick!!

 

[kypnrp]

I believe most people don't realize how big of a problem suicide is -- not in the aspect that people choose to take their lives -- but the circumstances that lead to this. Lack of awareness, psychiatry being expensive, the prejudice towards mental ilness ... That demotivates us even more and makes people even more prone to CTB.

It's a shame that the matter is not covered in a respectful manner. I wish that could happen, it could be educative for some.

 

[sleepy dog]

What I find odd is we don't hear as much about suicide, but when we have a mass shooting here in the US, the news media will cover it for 24 hours a day for days and days. They'll interview all the shooter's family and friends and agonize over what the person's motive was and so forth. I always wonder who the hell cares what the person's motive was?! They chose to take another person's life that they didn't have a right to take.
I don't really care what their motive was.

Or occasionally when a celebrity dies, they cover it for days and days, such as they did with Michael Jackson. I have nothing against Michael Jackson, but I got so sick of all the coverage of his death, especially when they were trying to show pictures of his body on the TV. That's just gruesome!

And then there are all the serial killers. They have endless coverage of serial killers and all sorts of shows and series about them and what motivates them and so forth.

The US media is just sick!!

I remember the Michael Jackson time. Goodness sakes they just would not stop. Seemed 80%, almost all of TV, was about it day after day. I stopped watching it for a week or so, found other stuff to do. So frustrating.

 

[BlueWidow]

I remember the Michael Jackson time. Goodness sakes they just would not stop. Seemed 80%, almost all of TV, was about it day after day. I stopped watching it for a week or so, found other stuff to do. So frustrating.

For me that was a very surreal time because I was going through this horrific incident at the same time that the Michael Jackson thing happened. I won't go into the story right now but if you're interested in it it's in my thread called "Baker Acted- long rant".
Resulting from that incident, I was forced to go to a series of group therapy sessions focused on depression which did absolutely nothing to make me feel better, as usual. It was just more asinine slogans and platitudes and stupid suggestions for how to deal with your depression. So I'd go to these group therapy sessions, which I remember were very strange. The entire experience was very surreal and strange. So anyway I'd go to these therapy sessions and then I'd go home and try to relax and turn the TV on for a little bit and it would be wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson. I finally gave up trying to watch TV and ended up doing something else. That was a very weird time in my life.

 

[Rising Phoenix]

Wonder why we do not hear much about suicide? Read this:

Best practice suicide reporting tips

www.samaritans.org

And Shawn's family thinks we have the upper hand. Pff