MEDIA CODE OF PRACTICE URGED FOR SUICIDE REPORTING.
8 January 1997
A leading psychiatrist has called for the establishment of media guidelines to cover the reporting of suicides in Ireland.
Dr. John F. Connolly, secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology said a national group - including representatives of the media, the Samaritans and medical professionals - should be formed to draw up the code of practice.
Dr. Connolly who is chief psychiatrist at St. Mary's Hospital, Castlebar said: "The media need to handle this topic in a very careful and sensitive fashion. It must be said that they have not always been helped in this regard by professionals in the field of suicidology, particularly the medical profession."
A model for them to follow, he said, was the way the media in Seattle handled the situation following the death of Nirvana rock star Kurt Cobain who killed himself in April 1994.
Dr. Connolly speaking at a meeting of the Suicide Bereavement Support Group - Solace - in Castlebar added: "Personnel in the support and outreach organisations in that city at that time, were very fearful that a number of fans would copy the example of Cobain.
"Fortunately research has shown that this did not happen. That was thanks, in many respects, to the way the media handled the event in a very sensitive way, separating the act from the man.
"Often the media make it seem a very romantic sort of thing to do, idealise suicide and make it appear acceptable as a rational choice of method of solving problems and over simplify what is the end result of a very complex process, or otherwise sensationalise it.
"In addition the media often tend to have an over simplistic view of the origins of suicide and what was going on in the life of an individual at the particular time when he choose to end his life."
Dr. Connolly added: "I think these issues are very important and one should be worried about the way the media in general handle the problem of suicide." He hoped the national press would change in a very positive way and follow the example of what happened in the Kurt Cobain case. However, on the other hand the provincial press, he said, tended to ignore suicides and rarely reported on them.
Dr. Connolly explained: "This I think is done from the very best of motives
in an effort not to cause pain to families and not to identify and
stigmatise the victims and their relatives. The disadvantage of this is that
it keeps suicide as a taboo subject."
