The way the media reports on suicide is changing — and it's about time
Updated
It has always perturbed me that my journalistic training as copyboy and newspaper cadet prepared me to cover a wide range of important issues, but never suicide.
Many times I heard an editor or chief of staff declare, "We can't report that."
Thankfully, that approach has changed because campaigners have successfully argued we should discuss more openly why so many people are dying.
Last year, I wrote a story for ABC News about the life and death of popular Zach McLoughlin-Dore.
I cried transcribing the words of Zach's mother Kate, whose comments prompted an enormous reaction from readers.
A change in terminology
After the story was published I was contacted by countless people in support of the ABC's coverage of suicide. But I also received an email respectfully critical of my writing.
Clinical psychologist and senior researcher Dr Helen Stallman told me I should have used the term "died by suicide" instead of "taking his own life" or "committing suicide".
Dr Stallman's feedback was both interesting and helpful.
She accepted an invitation to talk to News Breakfast and drove home why we needed to have this discussion.
"The media can have a huge impact in influencing how the general public think and talk about suicide," she said.
"One of the things we do is use the term 'died by suicide' as akin to 'died from a heart attack' or 'died from cancer', and it's really to start normalising that it's just a cause of death.
"Because when we say things like 'killed himself' or 'took her own life' ... what we're doing is attributing blame and that really creates a stigma.
"[It's a stigma] for both people who have had suicide attempts but also people who are bereaved after someone they love has died by suicide, and then they can't talk about it."
Historically under-reported
ABC Editorial Policies manager Mark Maley is helping guide journalists through this new era of reporting suicide.
He said there were a couple of key reasons why suicide had traditionally been underreported.
If you or anyone you know needs help:
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"Historically, there's been a huge stigma attached to suicide and a stigma attached to mental health," he said.
"So in a sense, out of sensitivity to families, there was a reluctance to report suicide.
"The other obvious reason was contagion, and that's still a factor that affects suicide reporting, the sense that reporting suicide could cause copycat suicides."
Mr Maley explained editors and journalists were still careful about reporting suicides.
"I think there is still very much a reluctance in the short-form news stories to deal with suicide," he said.
"But I think there's much less reluctance to deal with it in longer-form journalism, where I think we've learned how to deal with suicide in a much more responsible and, if you like, productive way."
Changing the guidelines
Mr Maley said after decades of largely avoiding the issue, there was a turning point in 2011 as campaigners like Professor Patrick McGorry urged media outlets to alter their advice to journalists.
Since then the Press Council has updated its guidelines, as have commercial outlets and the ABC.
"[They] all changed around 2011 to reflect that change in attitude, not that we should not report suicide, but that we should report it in a positive way where we feel there is a story where we can contribute.
"It gave us more guidance about how to do it in a responsible way.
"There's actually now an enormous amount of discussion of suicide in a current affairs context."
It is encouraging to know this is happening in newsrooms all around the country, in the hope better coverage of this issue might lead to fewer people dying by suicide.
Topics: suicide, community-and-society, journalism, australia
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