I’m a bit confused by this. I thought you were all for the media disclosing factually accurate information?

But here, you seem to be saying that you don’t want people to know the full truth.

I know that in this case the report was not very nice. But life and death often isn’t.

Maybe, rather than being free to print this kind of thing, you’d prefer to have a panel of experts empowered to determine what the media reports?

This panel would be a bit like a ‘taste censor’.
Only articles that are sufficiently ‘tasteful’ could be printed.

Perhaps we could co-opt a couple of politicans onto the board? Maybe some few high-minded doctors? A self-important science columnist? And what about a Formula One boss with a taste for bondage?

Because the people of Britain are too stupid or prurient to know what’s good for them, this panel could prevent anything they don’t like the smell of from being published.

As a result the newspapers would be cleansed of articles which, though factually accurate, are insufficiently ‘tasteful’ or ‘useful’

They would also become politically compliant and dull as ditchwater.

What your former girlfriend’s partner did to himself is a tragedy.

However, he did it and we should be able to discuss the fact that he did.

Depression is a peculiar thing, though. I’ve had it, but you don’t always know that you’ve got it. It tends to be actually a more realistic worldview, I’ve read; a healthy state of mind is one of unreasonable optimism. So it’s hard to tell that something’s wrong with you, whereas if you are holding conversations with the furniture you can objectively understand that something is wrong with this.

Does the level of detail actually make any difference?

If true, it would be a communal reinforcement of belief where the community of (suicidal) people never actually meet. It might only require one person to do what someone else is thinking about doing to nudge them into ‘what I’m thinking about doing is actually OK; therefore, I am going to do it’

You may not agree, and nor may many of the posters here . . . but thank god it’s not your decision. I agree Ben has come far too close to censorship on this one. The Bailey woman was revolting, though not remarkably revolting by the Telegraph’s standards, and broke her own code of conduct. And there’s a correlation between the reporting of suicide methods and the immediate popularity of suicide methods. Horrible. Unprofessional. Crappy. Dangerous. Yet another reason I only read the Telegraph for WI frugality tips.

But these things aren’t a good argument for what many of you seem to want, the legal mandating and regulation of good taste, because there’s NO good argument for legally mandating and regulating good taste. Someone will have to legally mandate and regulate what good taste is, you see. And when it’s about something as sensitive as death and who’s responsible for it, the potential for abuse is staggering. Obviously. Right? No? Not obviously? Sigh. Bad Science has never made me so proud to be a journalist and a humanities graduate.

A headline or the first sentence of a news report on television or radio doesn’t usually tell you that it’s going to be followed by a step-by-step system for recreating it. You can’t always skip an article before it’s too late. Furthermore, that kind of technical information is not news, which is what I’m paying for.

When you’re talking about suicides among people that are basically physically and mentally healthy, the message communicated through the suicide is extremely important, especially when considering the likelihood of copycats. “People” don’t use chainsaws to kill themselves: men who are losing their homes do. “People” don’t hang themselves in Bridgend: healthy young women who just had a argument with their boyfriends do. “People” don’t strangle themselves in Micronesia: well-liked sons aged 15-24 whose fathers scolded them for something minor do — and so on. When we report these incidents, a small number of foolish people will assume that this is the right way to respond to these situations.

The model is called “social proof”, which says basically that if you don’t know how to behave, then copy the person next to you, and humans are clearly wired to work that way. So if a person gets low marks at school, and she swallows a dozen aspirin — or gets drunk, or screams at her parents, or cries for hours, or leaves school, or blames the teacher — then that must be the way people respond, and if this happens to you, then you should do the same thing.

I don’t know if anyone else has, but I have brought the continued existence of the apparently unedited story on the Telegraph website to the attention of the PCC.

… no apostrophe …

The difficulty is that journalists/editors actively seek out “case studies” that match predetermined stereotypes. Remember that when you see interviews with people caught up in news events, they will have been edited – plane crash survivors who ask important questions about airline safety are edited out in favour of those who are visibly shocked or hysterical.

I fear that as circulation falls, the media will go even further down this road, presenting us with sensationalist stories involving individual tragedies that shed no light on (indeed divert attention away from) the real underlying issues.

I, for my part avoid buying newspapers and watching TV, I would urge you all to do likewise!

Better than drawing attention to unfortunate medical outcomes of those who attempted to kill themselves, as a warning, would it not be more constructive to highlight those who (like a poster above) say “I thought of trying it but I don’t feel that way any more and am glad to be alive – the urge passes and you can come through it”

In what possible way can somebody commiting suicide, no matter the method, be considered news?

Surely the media should be there to present items of importance to the nation or at least to the demographic they cover?

In what possible way does somebodies suicide affect me, the man on the street, unless i actually know the person…in which case would i want to read about it in a newspaper anyway?

The only place i can see a story about a suicide being apt is in a psychiatric journal where it’s covered from the angle of what made the person do it rather than the gory details ie a case study.

Given the media is seemingly trending towards more and more sensational stories maybe we should just bring back the roman circus with it’s gladitorial games?

Maybe we could throw offending reporters to the lions…or would the be cruelty to animals?

And what about the little ones? They only have the life-size eggs in the adverts, as far as I remember, but if your cult -is- going to strip naked in the meeting hall and wait for the leader to initiate your collective destruction, which is what the eggs do, you don’t usually leave the children out of it.

If you have been affected by the issues in this posting, you should see the state -I’m- in.

What editors do is sensationalism. Suicide by chainsaw hits the headlines because it is unusual. Suicide by hanging or overdose doesn’t because it isn’t. Suicide by lots of young men in a single area (eg, Bridgend – even though it is little different to other areas of South Wales) is similarly sensational.

A code of practice might help – but I would be more inclined to suggest a boycott (see, for eg, the Sun’s rapid u-turn following the now infamous “Bonkers Bruno” headline. If we could hit the papers where it hurts (in their circulation), then we might make a difference.

March 29, 2009 at 9:16 pm

Ben
I’m not trying to be funny, but shouldn’t you include “details of further sources for help and advice” in your article?”

I agree with ehm: just a link to the Samaritans perhaps at http://www.samaritans.org

There will be some people who come upon this post, search for it, using search terms I don’t want to write here, who are in a distressed state. And it’s a pretty disturbing post (although well-thought through and fair).

http://www.scientificdreaminterpretation.com

You have got to be kidding.