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Reporting suicides

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Mr. X, Dec 24, 2006.

  1. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    I'm in full agreement with this. Especially if the student was 18.
    If it is a minor, name excluded. The information is there.
    The actual details of the suicide serve no one.
     
  2. Gold

    Gold Active Member

    That is a completely wrong reason for not covering suicides. They happen in clusters not because newspapers report on it, but because the word spreads among teenagers without the newspapers. To quote Paul Simon, Silence like a cancer grows.

    Suicide is in the top 10 causes of young people's deaths, and I think it might be in the top 5. That isn't a pleasant fact, but a policy of not reporting suicides doesn't save people's lives. Articles about suicide - with resources where people can get help - might save lives.
     
  3. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    Agreed, enterprising it is the best way to go.

    There are few things more arrogant in the business than a journalist presuming to understand why a stranger took his own life (this gleaned from little or no research) and then condensing it into a neat little graf up high. Usually unattributed, too.
     
  4. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I did a suicide column about 10 years ago, but it was about a player I had seen who'd had a monster game in one of the first games I ever covered. I never went into the details of his death, even though I'd learned plenty from the police report. (He hung himself in his bedroom with a dog chain.)

    Usually, you can read an obit and put two and two together. Twenty-year-old guys don't normally just die at their home of natural causes, and if that's the case, a memorial is usually listed.
     
  5. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member


    You see, I like the subtleness of your report (even though the victim was an adult).
    And, as professionals, we need to be discerning of how we word our reports in these really tough instances that plague society and our youths. (another: sexual assault).
    A softened word or an altered phrase could really help the real victims: the survivors.
     
  6. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Even then, you've got to be careful. My brother's best friend dropped dead due to previously undetected heart defect when he was only 20 year's old.
     
  7. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    I dealt with a suicide-related sports story this fall.

    I showed up to a prep soccer game in September just a tad bit early and was sitting in the stands chatting with my photographer. I glance over at the home team who is warming up and notice something wasn't right. A small, younger player had kicked a ball into the head of an older player. From what I witnessed it was an accident, but the older kid jumped on the little kid (nicknamed Peanut) and just started wailing on him.

    It went on for about a minute and the coach broke it up and sat both players out of the game. I noticed the older kid sulked off and didn't stick around for the game. I thought about writing about what happened in my game notes, but since it was 45 minutes before the game started, I didn't bother with it.

    In October, I'm at a prep football game and I'm told that a soccer player from the school I covered in September had offed himself. I asked if it was the kid who had blown up a month before and of course it was. They had a moment of silence for the kid before the football game. Several people told me off the record the kid was severely teased by football players and others. I was bit disappointed in myself for not reporting his emotional explosion in the paper. Perhaps if I would have, his need for help would've been met.
     
  8. Crimson Tide

    Crimson Tide Member

    My shop does not report on suicides, but will report on murder-suicides. Why? Beats the hell out of me, other than hung up on offending people. The unofficial rule of the shop is report unless it could offend readers and cost us subscriptions.

    Whatever. In a place our size, anyone dying of anything other than natural causes doesn't happen that often, so it's newsworthy. Families are going to be fucked up whether Johnny got shanked or blew his head off.

    The given reason is that we don't want to publicize suicide so other troubled people do it. That's fucking stupid. The same could be said for murders, but we cover them and acknowledge that shit happens. What's the difference between being killed and killing yourself? Dead is dead, and it's ugly either way.
     
  9. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    Cowardice.

    That's the difference.
     
  10. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    If you're trying to say that it takes more courage not to go through with it than to do so, yes, I agree with you.

    But if you're trying to say that people who commit suicides are cowards ... well, maybe you don't know what it feels like to be that close to the edge. Let's not be judgmental here.
     
  11. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    I've been surrounded by people who desperately clung to every last wisp of life they had left, never wanted to cross the bridge and I'm at the point where I think it's an issue of courage. Don't throw the fight. It's very hard to respect someone who puts a glock in their mouth after you watch someone else dying of cancer.

    I don't mean to be calloused, it's just where I'm at.
     
  12. Gold

    Gold Active Member

    LJB, I'm disappointed in your statement.

    If you know anything about depression, you would not say that. It is an ailment, just like heart problems, AIDS, cancer, or other illnesses. Sometimes it results in suicide or attempted suicide.

    This is why there is a need for articles about suicides, to show that there is help available.
     
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