Chapter 6
Covering Suicide
Taking suicide reporting recommendations to the next level.
The 3rd edition of Mindset includes a more advanced version of the chapter on reporting on suicide, in response to a welcome expansion of scope beyond the reporting of individual incidents. The new chapter should be read first, for the broad rationale it provides for a more nuanced and productive approach to applying standard recommendations.
This section of the website gives more examples of how the advice, developed over many months with input from leading journalists and suicide prevention specialists, might be applied in a variety of situations.
The Forum held a three-hour panel discussion on suicide reporting with delegates to the national conference of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention in October 2019, in preparation for advancing our suicide reporting recommendations. A number of video clips from those sessions are available in these support pages. In the first, Renata D'Aliesio, who led the Globe & Mail's team on The Unremembered project that exposed the extent of suicide among Canada's Afghanistan war veterans, and Ioanna Roumeliotis, who had inside access for CBC News: The National to the Toronto Transit Commission during its move away from a longstanding policy of silence about subway suicide, engaged with delegates about how to define responsible reporting.
A rigid one-size-fits-all approach can inhibit important journalism that materially advances the public interest. We do not, on the other hand, advocate for a free-for-all. Rather we advance the principle that, where there is a substantial public good to be achieved through enterprising journalism, that is a significant factor that should be weighed against the potential for harm, with the objective of maximizing the former and minimizing the latter.
This principle may affect different kinds of suicide reporting differently. It is not our intent here to categorize suicide stories and give inflexible recommendations for each. Categorizing is presented only as a useful starting point for ethical consideration.
Resources
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Incident Reporting
Individual deaths reported as news stories
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Feature Reporting 1
General advice and focus on groups at particular risk.
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Feature Reporting 2
Focus on policy and "upstream" issues
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Feature Reporting 3
Investigation of possible shortcomings by governments, industries, public authorities or institutions.
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Interviewing Supporters
A call for training; links to resources.