Reporting suicide is a virtual taboo in the Australian media. Authorities are reluctant to divulge information or comment on suicide cases.
Pressure comes to bear on journalists and editors to not report suicides at all, presumably out of a copycat fear.
The hostility from health agencies toward media reporting of suicides has gone too far in my opinion, beyond even the guidelines recommended by the Mindframe project.
These guidelines, which are apparently given to university students, suggest being non-specific about method, which is fair enough.
The Geelong Advertiser came in for some stick recently when it reported the fourth suicide within a year by students at the same local high school. I believe the paper was justified in highlighting the problem.
In 1998 the Australian Press Council released guidelines for discussion:
1. Suicide should be reported when such reports are in the public interest. Media professionals avoid the distribution of material that is likely to incite or encourage self harm or suicidal behavior.
2. Media professional exercise care to not trivialise, romanticise, nor glorify suicide, particularly in media which targets, or is likely to be available to, young people.
3. Media professionals adhere to existing Australian media industry codes of practice for reporting suicide.
4. Media professionals consult, when appropriate, reputable associations, research centres, counselling services and Departments of Health when seeking comment on suicide and mental health issues.
5. Media professionals show sensitivity to persons bereaved by suicide in a way that is respectful of the deceased and the family since people bereaved by suicide are themselves at increased risk for suicidal behavior.
I’m comfortable with these suggestions, which are similar to the mindframe recommendations, although “public interest” is often subjective. The difficulty with point (4) is most health workers tell us not to report the story at all.
It’s a far cry from a century ago when newspapers reported life and death in full detail. Are there fewer suicides today?
I wonder if in the intervening years we’ve become too precious about some things, whether a do-gooder misinterprets some data or jumps on a questionable study to change the way we write and talk about important social issues.
The Australian media doesn’t talk much about suicide because some people might copy it. Should we also stop writing about domestic violence, rape, murder, etc?
The prompt for this post was a story from The Border Watch 100 years ago, which surfaced in our historical column that appears tomorrow:
Attempted suicide
A young man named Francis William Harrison, who came to Mount Gambier a couple of months ago and opened “an elite skating rink” here for Mr Alfred S. Belcher, tyre repairer for the Atlas Tyre Company, Adelaide, attempted to commit suicide on Sunday morning.
It appears the affairs of the rink did not run too prosperously, and correspondence about it passed between Belcher and Harrison, but the latter did not tell his employer he had closed the rink over a week before Sunday.
Belcher came from Adelaide to make investigations and arrived by train at 6.30am Sunday morning.
Harrison lodges at the Mount Gambier Hotel, and Mr Belcher went there and enquired after him.
Before 7am one of the hotel girls told Harrison a friend from Adelaide wanted to see him.
At 8am, the girl took him a cup of tea to drink in bed, and he was then all right.
After 9am, as there was no appearance of Harrison, Mr Belcher went up to his room, and called him from outside the door.
He received no reply, and then went in.
Harrison was lying on his side with his face to the wall.
Mr Belcher put his hand on his shoulder and said “Frank.”
He got no reply.
At the same moment he saw a big gash, that was bleeding profusely, in his throat.
There was blood in the bed, a pool of blood in front of the bed, that ran under it, and blood spurted about elsewhere in the room.
An open razor with blood on the blade, lay on the dressing table.
Mr Belcher noticed that Harrison’s face was as white as a sheet, and he thought he was dead.
He rushed downstairs, and informed Mr A Rook, and a telephonic message was immediately sent to Dr Muir.
The doctor was at the hotel in a few minutes and attended to Harrison’s self-inflicted injury, and staunched the flow of blood.
The police were informed, and Constables Foale and Smart had the man conveyed subsequently to the Hospital for treatment.
The wound in the throat extends right across the front of it, and just missed the jugular vein on the left side.
It was not likely to prove fatal.
Harrison was 27 years of age and single.
Update: The Press Council released new suicide reporting standards in August 2011, which lifted most of the restrictions.
Some readers like all the gory details.
I always like the blood and guts descriptions when reading about death or suicide, because it helps me to understand the desperation behind a suspicious death, why some people choose a method.
You can pretty much guess the sex of the deceased, by the method they chose to die by.
Yes Micheal, we are too precious about suicide.
Being hush hush on taboo topics, is so outdated and does nothing towards resolving or understanding the problems of human nature, problems we all face, it is part of what makes us who we are, what makes us human and vulnerable.
Surely we must get past all the shame and secrecy, and newspapers need to be able to tell the story like it is, even if it is shocking to some readers.
How else will people get to know the story behind a suicide, if not to be better informed and more tolerant of society in general.
The taboo on suicide reporting is a worldwide one. It ensures that the reasons do not come out, are not analysed, and cannot be addressed.
I had an email from a solicitor in the old country which said my close relative had perished in an apartment fire. I received no further details on my questions. I searched the internet for newspaper articles, because fires causing a casualty are normally reported. I searched through the photos from all fire brigade incidents in that city, in vain. It was like it had not happened.
After contacting the municipal office, I was referred to the DPP as being the only ones who are allowed to give information. While they did not say it was suicide, they gave two details, spreading a flammable liquid and an eviction notice, that clearly indicated it was suicide. That relative had become unemployed in his early fifties. He had also had his inheritance taken away by a corrupt government which would have enabled him to buy a roof over his head.
The taboo means, nothing can be learned from these cases. The system does not want to change, does not want to admit it does the wrong things. In my relative’s case that was the loss through a corrupt (democratically elected) government, and a job market which was distorted by millions of immigrants from all corners of the earth, meaning that a ‘native’ over 50 has no chance whatsoever. In my heart, I had even sometimes hoped the relative would have joined a criminal gang so he could survive.
They talk about depression as if it came through the air or water. Depression comes from depressing circumstances, circumstances that go on for so long that people are crushed.
I feel like throwing a shoe at my television when they say ‘ring such and such number….’ as if yakkering on the phone changes the circumstances!
Would talking to a beyond blue type organisation have netted that relative a job? Would talking to a beyond blue type organisation have erased the eviction notice? Would talking to a beyond blue type organisation have delivered justice from a corrupt government? I do not know for sure if that relative was depressed, but depression is not a stand-alone condition!
If suicides were properly reported people could do some thinking about the causes. Without analyising the causes, the injustices which have crushed these people do not come out, but maybe that’s what the system wants.
The reporting taboo reminds me of ‘we sweep the dust under the carpet and when it lifts we move’.
First of all, I am sorry for your loss.
You suggest that talking to a helpline or a crisis counselling service would not change anything, or “have netted your relative a job”….maybe not…but it may have potentially saved a life.
I agree with you about all of the frustrations experienced by this being such a taboo topic, we need to have these conversations openly and publicly, hiding the sensitive nature of a cause of death compacts the level of grief you feel, because as you say you are unsure if your relative was depressed, or if he was, the injustices in his life made him feel so alone, and that he had no other reason to live, or even had a choice about continuing.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
Last week we reported a story about the suicide of a 15-year-old boy in May last year.
The boy’s father has requested an inquest after an autopsy found traces of Roaccutane – an acne treatment that may lead to depression and suicidal thoughts.
There was no prescription for the drug and the father believes it was provided to his son by another student.
Education officials have expressed concern about the story, claiming it could cause mental health problems for students.
The take-home message for my teenage children was to not take medicines without a prescription.
Methinks the education officials are really more worried about political pressures and the school’s reputation.
An open society should have rational mature discussion about these issues.
No, talking to a helpline does not have the potential to save a life, because when you put the receiver down, you are exactly where you were before.
Only if helplines could offer instantaneous ‘correction’ of some of the circumstances would they make a difference, but that is not realistic, because they cannot offer jobs, or apartments, or justice as it happened in our case. Maybe for children or teenagers, if such helplines have the capacity to remove them from their circumstance within two minutes flat, that could make a difference, but that’s not how the system works.
The case with acne medication is absolutely tragic. The best way to treat acne is to eat a 100 % chicken and egg free diet, incl. bakery items. It takes some months for the stuff to wash out of your system.
I have to disagree, that you think helplines don’t ‘help’.
People who are at risk of suicide or are having suicidal ideations can be helped enough to disable a suicide plan…enough to be safe, until they are in a better place (mentally), if they are indicating they have a definite plan and the means (pills, weapon, rope, other,) the helpline will inetervene with police assitance to ensure the immediate saftey of a person at risk of suicide.
There is one important point I would like to state here. The fact that a suicidal person is picking up the phone to call a helpline…this is significant..it is saying “I want someone to help me, I don’t feel able to do this alone anymore…there is no hope, but I need help to get past this”..These are only small things (you may think unhelpful) but actually verbalising the pain to someone at the end of the phone, is helping at a critical moment, and this can be a life saving measure.
I think your expectations of what helplines are there for, are not completely understood, and I say this respectfully. Helplines would never have been able to find your loved one a job, but perhaps would have been able to reduce the crisis enough to prevent the very sad outcome, and the injustice you now feel so strongly about.
I wonder, have you thought about grief counselling? There is a suicide bereavment support group run by Lifeline, if you are interested?
I agree with Ebony. I’ve been there, on the helpline. No, the circumstances didn’t change, but my OUTLOOK about them DID.
It’s not the circumstances that brings a person to their knees, it’s the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, utter despair, the feeling that we are all alone and nobody cares and that deep down we just don’t matter enough to live. In truth, any circumstance can bring about this mindset, from the wealthiest to the poorest, and in truth, those same circumstances can bring a man great joy or peace. It all depends on how it’s viewed by the person.
There are people who give up EVERYTHING to live in service to others. They have no roof to call their own, sometimes nothing over their heads at all. Yet, they are at peace. Ever wonder why? Then there are the millionaires who feel empty inside, used by their “friends” for their money and status and cast aside.
It’s not the circumstances that causes suicidal thoughts. And helplines DO help. It’s not something I openly talk about often, because even admitting that I have been there is taboo, but well, I was there. Having somebody on the other end just talking to me when I had called all of my friends, all of my relatives, and nobody wanted to give me five minutes. It helped a bunch. It got me through some very dark emotions and once I had released them I felt well enough to work on changing my own life.
I think, as anyone who knows me in the present day knows, I have done well with my life. And to think it all could have ended that one day in the distant past.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
Sue’s experience is a good example that a helpline can be helpful.
Thanks for sharing, Sue.