Covering suicides

Dick, that's something totally different. If I were the coach, I'd talk to my son and explain to him what happened. He needs to hear it from a parent not drunk uncle harry or a nosey neighbor without a life. As for becoming a spokesman for suicide prevention, I'm sure there are plenty of outlets who would train him to be a good counselor to others.

 

Good topic, even if it's a sobering one.

I haven't had to cover one, but the Ben Hill Griffin jump recently was one a good number of colleagues wrote about. I don't know that any of them talked to anyone in the family or even extended family in the immediate aftermath (that night or the next day). Just went back and did a quick look-through of all the local papers and the student paper and didn't see anything.

I haven't seen much follow-up coverage either. The closest thing anyone got to getting personal information about the student (not a public figure) was to talk to fellow friends and students he had class with or cycled with.

Can't imagine being in the situation to have to report that and contact loved ones. Been close enough to people who have experienced suicides or attempted suicides of loved ones to know that's something I don't ever want to have to deal with. I have a lot of respect for the people who can tactfully and thoughtfully craft copy that adequately covers the incident while remaining respectful to those close to the victim. Definitely not my cup of tea, though.

 

I've covered several suicides during my career. The most important thing, in my opinion, is not to glorify the tragedy.

 

Not that your point isn't valid from a sensitivity standpoint, but I don't believe there are any legal issues here. You can't libel the dead.

In a similar vein, I once interviewed a mother who had left her 10-month-old unattended in the bathtub (while she called Jehovah's Witnesses back to her house to talk), with the inevitable consequence. She talked for probably 45 minutes straight, to the point that I actually wondered if I was going to end up getting called to testify at a trial. She pretty much admitted to involuntary manslaughter.

Left that job long before anything ever came of it, and to be honest, I don't know what the outcome was. Still, pretty sobering for a kid six months out of college who just wanted to cover sports. (This was a weekly, so I covered sports, cops, schools ...)

 

The best advice I can give young journalists out there on how to cover a suicide is to play it straight. Let the coroner, the police and other authorities comment on it being a suicide. If a family member acknowledges it as such, so be it. Don't interject anything more in the story.

 

That's not just good advice for covering suicides. I've been on several stories that were so dramatic, I figured out that all I could do was fuck it up. Step back and let the story tell itself.

As for suicides, I gotta go with ColdCat on this one: If you'd be writing about their death anyway, write it. If not, let them be.

 

I feel you with fucking it up. I've been at the scene of a couple. In one case, the guy stood on top of tractor and pulled the trigger. Hat flew up in the air several feet. Very difficult to write but police and family gave a vivid description of his final moments. Their quotes said it all.

 

We had a similar "suicide cluster" in the suburb I was covering when i first started out. Hated, hated, hated, having to take that long walk from my car to the front door of the parents.

We also did stories on whether doing stories about teen suicides encouraged more of them. The experts seemed to think it didn't.

 

But your original post said you called him "over and over and over." That's a bit much, imo.

 

Yeah, I think maybe it felt like "over and over and over" is what I was getting at, because it was such an icky part of the job. When it led to a discussion, I racked my brain for real details and I think that it was three phone calls. I think at the end of the night, I got the, "This voice mail box is full" message.

This was before texting. Thank God.

 

If a coroner or police officer is quoted - in the Seau case, the officer said it was being investigated as a suicide -it should be reported.

When someone young dies, it calls for an explanation.

Suicide is a major cause of death of people between 15 and 24. I understand how hard it is, but to not report on suicides may be hiding a problem that people need to know about. Reporting a suicide, rather than inspiring copycats, may help prevent suicides if experts are brought into the situation.

 

One I ran into early on in my career was a person we normally wouldn't have written about, but he shot himself in public. This was actually about a week before my first day working for the paper, but I dealt with some of the fallout.

The guy and his wife were separated. They had two sons, one living with each of them. He finds her dancing with another man in a club, then goes to get a gun from his car and shoots himself right there in the parking lot.

My first day, there is a memo in everybody's mailbox reminding us to be careful who we let in the building because there has been a recent threat on the life of one of our reporters.

A few months later, I call one of our local baseball coaches for a preview. He tells me he isn't interested and hangs up. Turns out he is the brother of the guy who committed suicide and he is the one who came to our office and threatened to kill the reporter who covered it. So nice of my boss to warn me. :

Actually ended up getting to know both of the sons, who were damn good football players. The older one was a good kid. The younger one was nuts. Got a Division II scholarship, but he quit and dropped out of the school about a week into preseason practice. Not sure what happened to him.