For the Media
Don't some people who have attempted suicide want to tell their stories?
Can't others learn from these stories?
It depends on who is telling the story and how it is told. Certainly accounts by adults who have recovered from suicidal depression can be helpful. Mike Wallace and William Styron are notable examples. Accounts by young people sought by television programs are usually exploitative, may be harmful to the youngster, and may encourage other youngsters to see a suicide attempt as a way of getting attention.
If people read about the effects of suicide (e.g. the condition of the body, the terrible effects on the family), won't that make them less likely to commit suicide?
The producers of a recent HBO film that showed what the corpses of individuals who shot or hung themselves looked like rationalized that doing so would discourage suicide. Sixty percent of people who kill themselves use guns and another 15 percent hang themselves. The anger and self hatred that go into suicide are part of the reason for the appeal of these methods. The producers may have also been trying to shock the audience into watching the show. The shock value of a violent method, however, is also part of its appeal to individuals who are suicidal.
Can just reading about suicide make people suicidal?
There is no reason to believe that someone who is not suicidal can become so by reading a news story. Our concern is that someone who is suicidal may be stimulated to act by the nature of what is read. Those who worked on the media recommendations hope that suicide will be covered by the press. What the recommendations convey is that there are responsible and helpful ways of doing so that minimize risk.
What about murder-suicides?
Murder-suicides, while rare, almost always receive press coverage. Studies have shown the perpetrators have profiles that resemble individuals who commit suicide rather than those who commit homicide - the role of untreated depression in their stories is often lost in the news accounts.
What about assisted suicide? Do these recommendations apply to that too?
The press treated Kevorkian like a hero before realizingthat many of the people he assisted in suicide were not terminally ill but had treatable medical and/or psychiatric problems. Others who were terminally ill had distressing symptoms that could have been relieved if Kevorkian were knowledgeable about palliative care. This pattern of coverage applied not just to Kevorkian, but to a large number of assisted suicide stories.
If we stop reporting about specific methods used to commit suicide, won't they just find another way to kill themselves?
There is research evidence that media recommendations have an impact on the overall suicide rate, not just the rate for a specific method. For example, the overall suicide rate in Vienna decreased steadily after the promulgation of recommendations, which dramatically stopped the reporting of subway suicides. While the sharpest decrease was for subway suicides, there was no increase in other methods of suicide, indicating no shift of method.
