MARCH 11 — News reporting of suicide case can help in raising awareness of the public regarding to suicide, but it might cause other vulnerable individuals to commit suicide as well.
This is not saying that the news media should not be reporting suicide cases. In fact, they should report it, but not with every detail that are related to the case.
Numerous media have actually report suicide case with minimum detail which only include the day of incident, location and general information of the case.
But there are also a lot of media report on similar issues with very sensitive or very private information about the victims, especially for children and celebrities.
As mentioned above, news report about suicide case can raise public awareness which is very much needed. Our society is still having low awareness over suicide issue especially child suicide.
Until now, most of the people still believe that this is not a serious issue that is affecting our society even though statistics reported otherwise.
Media report in this sense, help to raise public awareness because people started to learn more and more about it, and in some instances had even help in preventing some suicide cases from happening.
Attitude of some people regarding suicide had changed because they now know how much people are being affected by suicide, and that everybody is susceptible to it.
In most report, the news media will include a hotline that offers help for people who are considering suicide as an option who might change their mind after calling the number and ask for help.
However, is the number of people being helped by these media reports enough to negate the number of those who committed suicide due to full detailed reports of suicide cases?
It was established that publicised suicide has the potential to serve as the stimulus for other susceptible person to commit suicide.
This is an effect called Werther effect, named after the novel The Sorrow of Young Werther by German philosopher, Goethe.
Soon after its publication in year 1774, young men began to mimic the behaviour of the main character in the book, and as the main character committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol at the end of the book, those young men did so in real life in acts of hopelessness.
The term was first coined by David Philips in 1974 even though the phenomenon was observed much earlier, and he found that suicide cases seems to rise after publicised suicide in 1985.
There are hundreds of studies confirming the Werther effect is a very real one and that it not only predicts a spike of suicide cases after a well-publicised one, but also predicts that majority of those suicide cases will happen in similar ways as the well-publicised case.
Not only that, the people who have similar demographic data with the victim are more likely to commit suicide in a similar way.
Furthermore, if the victim is a public figure like a celebrity, it is more likely to find copycat cases than other victim that is just an ordinary person.
Most of these studies was done back then when the social media is yet to be as popular as nowadays.
In the present time where social media is the mainstream of anything and everything, it is expected to have a much bigger impact on the susceptible population.
One reason given by researchers is that the report of suicide cases normally will be met by sympathetic comment, something that most victims of suicide have never received during their lifetime.
That’s the kind of attention that is much needed for them, and seeing the victims of suicide getting it, they see it as the only way out.
Another reason offered is that when susceptible people read the news, they feel that if others cannot handle it, then they themselves will not be able to handle it too. This makes them feel hopeless.
The rule of the game for any media bent on reporting suicide is to be aware and beware of what should and what should not be included in the report.
In fact, multiple health organisations across the globe, including our Ministry of Health (MOH) have published their own guideline on how the media should approach the suicide reporting.
There are seven rules that the media should consider in reporting suicides:
- Avoid photograph, sensational coverage and headline, minimise coverage and acknowledge any mental illness;
- Avoid describing method used to commit suicide;
- Acknowledge that suicide was caused by multiple factors, not by only one factor;
- It should not be depicted as a method of coping with any problem;
- Take into account the impact of suicide on families;
- Emphasise to mourn the victim; and
- Describe the consequences of non-fatal attempt.
Although the last rule might have a negative impact, as it shows susceptible people if they failed the attempt, their life will be much difficult, and prompt them into picking a much violent way to end their life.
It seems not many media are following the rules. Some of them follow some suicide cases from the day the victim was found till the victim was buried. This situation is particularly ridiculous on social media reporting, where they report every little detail regarding the victim and the family.
Many feel this extensive follow up is necessary. Actually, it’s not. The report of suicide case should be following the guideline which will be sufficient enough to tell people what is going on.
Suicide is not a thing that should be publicised. The report is needed to raise awareness but it is not needed when it has too much detail about the case, which can serve as the stimulus for any future case.
*If you are lonely, distressed or having negative thoughts, Befrienders offers free and confidential support 24 hours a day. Contact Befrienders KL at 03-79568145 or 04-281 5161/1108 in Penang, or 05-547 7933/7955 in Ipoh or email [email protected]
** Amir Jalal and Chia Chu Hang are both part of the research team of EMIR Research, an independent think tank focussed on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.
*** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
