Warning: media reports on suicide can be fatal

* Bad science/frankenstein/boris karloff
*
o Ben Goldacre
o The Guardian, Saturday 28 March 2009
o Article history

This week, in my crescendoing tirade against journalism, we shall review the evidence that the media actually kills people. The suicide of Sylvia Plath's son has filled the news. The media obsessed - understandably - over genetics, when mental illness is probably the single biggest risk factor, but the coverage has been universally thoughtful, considerate, informed, and responsible.

This is not always the case. But before we get there, one important cause of suicide seems to have been missed. In The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe the hero shoots himself because his love is unattainable. The book was banned after men throughout Europe were reported to be dressing like Werther, copying his affectations, and taking their own lives in the same style.

But a myth about a book is not enough: you need research. And it has been shown repeatedly that suicide increases in the month after a front page suicide story. There is also evidence that the effect is bigger for famous people and gruesome attempts.

Overdoses increased by 17% in the week after a prominent overdose on Casualty (watched by 22% of the population at the time). In 1998 the Hong Kong media reported heavily on a case of carbon monoxide poisoning by a very specific method, using a charcoal burner. In the 10 months preceding the reports, there had been no such suicides. In November there were three; then in December there were 10; and over the next year there were 40.

And it's not pie in the sky to suggest the media should be careful in how they discuss suicide. After the introduction of media reporting guidelines in Austria, there was a significant decrease in the number of people throwing themselves under trains.

So organisations such as the Samaritans suggest that journalists avoid crass phrases such as "a successful suicide attempt". They suggest that journalists avoid explicit or technical details of suicide methods, for reasons you can now understand. They suggest that journalists include details of further sources for help and advice, since an article about suicide represents a great opportunity to target people at risk with useful information. And they recommend avoiding simplistic explanations for suicide.

From the weekly mass of reports that trample on this perfectly good common sense, one article from the Telegraph at the tail end of last year particularly sticks in my memory. It is very different from the coverage of Plath's son.

"Man cut off own head with chainsaw" was the headline. "A man cut off his head with a chainsaw because he did not want to leave his repossessed home." What the Telegraph published was a horrific, comprehensive, explicit and detailed instruction manual.

This information was so appallingly technical and instructive that after some discussion we have decided that the Guardian will not print it, even in the context of a critique. It gives truly staggering details on exactly what to buy, how to rig it up, how to use it, and even how to make things more comfortable while waiting for death to come. Suicidal thoughts are common. They pass.

Journalists get these kinds of stories from inquests, which are open to the public because we decided as a community, centuries ago, that it was important to be transparent about the judicial process.

Perhaps Plath's son will have a public inquest. Perhaps the media will cover it in the same way that the Telegraph covered the chainsaw case. I doubt they will, and I very much hope they won't. It's just hard to tell which is the journalist's true voice: the caring, compassionate, informed consolation, or the murderously detailed chainsaw voyeurism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...de-bad-science

Via DavidIcke.com