Covering suicides

[Dick Whitman]

Tangent on the Seau thread got shut down, which is cool, but it's a good J-topic.

Have you ever covered one? How do you go about it? Does the actual act have to be public? Does the person have to be famous or a public figure, at least locally? Do you call family members? Try to talk to an intermediary first? I'm not big on that, because I think people will protect people who don't even need or want to be protected - I think of all the times a secretary has told me that a coach or executive doesn't want to be interviewed, and then when I go to the guy directly, he fills my notebook. A lot of people actually like to talk about their friend or family member who has died.

Thoughts?

 

[imjustagirl]

I think if I didn't want a conversation to get sidetracked I wouldn't say "I remember calling a high school coach over and over one night trying to reach him after his wife committed suicide."

Then I sure wouldn't backtrack by saying:

* When I was first calling, we didn't know she had committed suicide. We just knew she had died.

* It wasn't really harassing, because I think it was going straight to voice mail. I think I made three calls. One when we first knew she died. Another one a little later to leave a message. One more with deadline creeping up on us just to make a good faith attempt to reach him.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think if I didn't want a conversation to get sidetracked I wouldn't say "I remember calling a high school coach over and over one night trying to reach him after his wife committed suicide."

Then I sure wouldn't backtrack by saying:

* When I was first calling, we didn't know she had committed suicide. We just knew she had died.

* It wasn't really harassing, because I think it was going straight to voice mail. I think I made three calls. One when we first knew she died. Another one a little later to leave a message. One more with deadline creeping up on us just to make a good faith attempt to reach him.

Yeah, this post was constructive.

 

[Moderator1]

We did a big project on it some years back, a number of teen-age boys shot themselves. Six in three weeks? Something like that. One was a big-deal area prep QB so I ended up on the lead. Granted, it was a couple of weeks after the actual suicide. But I called every family and every one of them wanted to talk. And talk. And talk. And talk.

Not sure it would have been easy calling the next day so I have no frame of reference there.

 

[Zeke12]

I've had the misfortune of covering a few suicides. Well, deaths that I found out later were suicides. I always used the "public place or public figure, otherwise no story" rule.

I've talked to enough dead people's relatives to know that **** is right: Sometimes they like talking about the deceased. Rare, though, are the ones who will do it that night. Calls the day of the suicide result in lashing out 99.9 percent of the time.

Every place I have ever worked had that policy.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Profound statement here, but ... circumstances are everything. We have had a number of suicides here at one train crossing in Palo Alto, to the point that several of them were considered copycat/teens romanticizing the idea. That became a public safety issue in addition to a matter of public curiosity, and IIRC a few of the parents were pretty happy to talk. But without a component of either public safety, a public figure or the event happening in a public place so everybody already knew about it, I wouldn't. Certainly not that day.

In reference to the other thread with the 12-year-old, I believe I would have quit on the spot before making that phone call.

 

[Matt Stephens]

You also need to always be sure it was legally declared a suicide by the coroner's office. I wrote a gamer this winter and focused on a kid who had an amazing game out of nowhere. The winning team with the focus player was out of our coverage area, so the news really hadn't been anything up here.

I talked to him after the game and he told me he dedicated his performance to his best friend who died the week prior. I asked him what happened, and he told me that the friend killed himself. I used the term "suicide" in the story because that's what his best friend told me that happened (and, honestly, it sounded a lot more deep/touching with this player's performance as opposed to "died"), but the copy desk switched it for legal purposes since the official report from the coroner's office hadn't been released.

 

[ColdCat]

the rule of thumb at all the places I worked was that if you would report the person's death if it were a heartattack, you report it if it's a suicide. Junior Seau takes his life- it's newsworthy, a 12 year old who in life was not a noteworthy person- not newsworthy.
When I worked TV news there were many times I got sent out to a scene where the coroners office was called out and in Jacksonville, the JSO sends a homicide detective to any reported death. Many times I would get out of the car and a uniformed officer would walk up to me and say "suicide" and I would just get back in the car and leave.

 

[Beef03]

Suicides are something I will always have great difficulty covering, not that it's easy for anyone. I understand the public place or figure policy, I'm not even against it. But it's more of a personal thing. I had a sister who killed herself when she was 15 and I was 13 and it was an issue I dealt with a lot growing up and since. It's just not an alley I can go down where I think I could do a proper job of reporting it. I've covered other deaths but I hit barrier when it comes to suicides.

 

[Liut]

I've had the misfortune of covering a few suicides. Well, deaths that I found out later were suicides. I always used the "public place or public figure, otherwise no story" rule.

I've talked to enough dead people's relatives to know that **** is right: Sometimes they like talking about the deceased. Rare, though, are the ones who will do it that night. Calls the day of the suicide result in lashing out 99.9 percent of the time.

Me too. Teammates and former coaches wanted to talk about the deceased as a way of honoring them. I knew the sources well enough it was fairly easy to track them down. Thought never came to me to phone up mom and dad.

In another instance, a high school kid had a career game the week of his father's suicide. He asked me not to state the exact cause of death. I agreed and the kid proceeded to give me some poignant quotes.

Respect and tact have helped me during these unpleasant assignments.

 

[Drip]

Tangent on the Seau thread got shut down, which is cool, but it's a good J-topic.

Have you ever covered one? How do you go about it? Does the actual act have to be public? Does the person have to be famous or a public figure, at least locally? Do you call family members? Try to talk to an intermediary first? I'm not big on that, because I think people will protect people who don't even need or want to be protected - I think of all the times a secretary has told me that a coach or executive doesn't want to be interviewed, and then when I go to the guy directly, he fills my notebook. A lot of people actually like to talk about their friend or family member who has died.

Thoughts?

****, from an editorial standpoint, I've been at publications that don't like to publicize suicides of "ordinary citizen." People like to copy cat incident such as a bomb hoax.
However, if the person who has committed suicide is a person of prominence, it is something that should be covered professionally, not glorified.

 

[Dick Whitman]

What is interesting is that the football coach I talked to really wanted to do a story on his wife's suicide, and kept it in mind over the course of a couple years that we were in touch. But he decided not to because he didn't want his young son to find out about it from Google some day instead of from him.

He wouldn't go on record - maybe he might have eventually - but he told me every single detail about her death, her depression, etc., etc. He was really torn between protecting his son from an inadvertent find and becoming a spokesman - even for a day - for suicide prevention.

 

[Drip]

What is interesting is that the football coach I talked to really wanted to do a story on his wife's suicide, and kept it in mind over the course of a couple years that we were in touch. But he decided not to because he didn't want his young son to find out about it from Google some day instead of from him.

He wouldn't go on record - maybe he might have eventually - but he told me every single detail about her death, her depression, etc., etc. He was really torn between protecting his son from an inadvertent find and becoming a spokesman - even for a day - for suicide prevention.

****, 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.

 

[Thomas Goldkamp]

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.

 

[Drip]

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

 

[deskslave]

You also need to always be sure it was legally declared a suicide by the coroner's office. I wrote a gamer this winter and focused on a kid who had an amazing game out of nowhere. The winning team with the focus player was out of our coverage area, so the news really hadn't been anything up here.

I talked to him after the game and he told me he dedicated his performance to his best friend who died the week prior. I asked him what happened, and he told me that the friend killed himself. I used the term "suicide" in the story because that's what his best friend told me that happened (and, honestly, it sounded a lot more deep/touching with this player's performance as opposed to "died"), but the copy desk switched it for legal purposes since the official report from the coroner's office hadn't been released.

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 ...)

 

[Drip]

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.

 

[Walter Burns]

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 **** 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.

 

[Drip]

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 **** 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 ****ing 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.

 

[finishthehat]

We did a big project on it some years back, a number of teen-age boys shot themselves. Six in three weeks? Something like that. One was a big-deal area prep QB so I ended up on the lead. Granted, it was a couple of weeks after the actual suicide. But I called every family and every one of them wanted to talk. And talk. And talk. And talk.

Not sure it would have been easy calling the next day so I have no frame of reference there.

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.