The Reporting of Suicide

The topic in this posting is the reporting of suicide. My starting point is a posting in bio edge . A leading Australian newspaper recently ran some articles chronicling Beverly Broadbent’s decision to commit suicide, see The Age. It appears at the time Beverly was relatively healthy. I will not consider whether Beverly was right to commit suicide here. However at this point I must make it clear I believe some people have the right to commit suicide and in the right circumstances may justify their decision if they do so. The post’s author clearly believes the journalist involved, Julia Medew, acted in an irresponsible way. He points out,

“A journalist is first of all a human being. Didn’t Medew have a moral obligation to dissuade a relatively healthy woman from committing suicide?”

However even if Medew ought to have attempted to dissuade Beverly this does not mean she ought not to have reported the suicide. In this posting I will argue the reporting of suicide is necessary for a better understanding of suicide.

What is wrong with Medew’s story? It might be objected that either the story should not have been reported in the way it was or it should not have been reported at all. I will deal with the latter objection first. An objector might argue such stories should not be reported due to the harm they cause. She might point to evidence that suggests the reporting of suicide leads to copy cat attempts, see for instance Gould, Jamieson and Romer . Because of the harm these copy cat suicides cause she might conclude suicide should simply not be reported at all. In reply I could point out much the same argument could be applied to school massacres and terrorist bombings. Prima facie it would be inconsistent to report these and not report suicides. Moreover it would seem to be absurd not to report events such as the Boston bombings for fear of contagion so why should Medew not report on Beverly’s suicide. My objector might respond that my analogy is flawed. She might point out the Boston bombings are a major story that cannot be ignored whilst Beverly’s suicide was a minor one and as a result could be. In reply I accept that Beverly’s particular suicide was not a major story but suicide in general is an important concern to society. If this were not so why should the World Health Organisation offer guidelines to journalists ?

However let us assume that my objector is correct and that in practice it is impossible to ignore terrorist bombings, such as those in Boston, whilst suicides can safely be ignored. Now provided she believes suicides should not be reported, due to the danger of copy cat cases, does this mean she also believes terrorist bombings should not be reported provided this was possible, as the same dangers of copycat attacks seem to apply. Perhaps the only reason why we ought not to attempt to ban the reporting of terrorist bombings is that we cannot. I will now argue that for terrorism such censorship is wrong even if this is possible. The Provisional IRA carried out a program of terror in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Both the British and Irish governments attempted censorship in the reporting of the troubles. However in Ed Moloney’s view,

“Censorship probably extended the life of the Troubles by as much as a third and that people died unnecessarily because of it. I say this because what censorship did was prevent the media from explaining events fully. One result was that public and government understanding was less than it should have been”, see Irish Censorship .

At this point my objector might point out that the reporting of terrorist bombings is not the same as journalists talking to Sinn Fein. In response I would point out a failure to report on Sinn Fein lead to a lack of understanding. I would then argue failing to fully report terrorist bombings might lead both the public and governments failing to grasp the full importance of these events. I would then suggest this diminished importance would lead to diminished understanding. If we fail to grasp the full importance of something we are less likely to reflect on it fully. Suicide is a problem for society and it is the biggest killer of young men in the UK, see The Guardian . If society is to understand and tackle this problem then it must be aware of the importance of the problem. I would suggest a failure to debate suicide, in an order to obtain a more adequate understanding of its causes, merely perpetuates suicide at its present levels. I would further suggest even if press coverage of suicide increases the cases of copy cat suicide in the short term that in the long term a more adequate understanding of the causes of suicide will lead to a decrease in the suicide rate. If this is so then the harm caused by copy cat suicides due to the reporting of suicide should be more than counterbalanced by a long term drop in the suicide rate.

I have argued it was not wrong for Medew to report on Beverly’s suicide. This brings us back to the first reason for the possible wrongness of her reporting, perhaps she was not wrong to report Beverly’s suicide but she did so in the wrong way. A report usually involves, what happened, the details of how it happened and why it happened. I have argued above if something that happens is not fully reported then we can fail to grasp how important that something is. This failure can lead to an inadequate understanding of the problem. Nonetheless it seems to me the mechanics of how someone commits suicide is not usually necessary to the understanding suicide and hence should not usually be reported. However if we are to understand the reasons for suicide we must understand an individual’s reasons for committing suicide and these should be reported. I would suggest the reporting of these reasons should not be emotive. There should be a separation of news and comment and comment need not be emotive free. If we understand the reasons why someone wishes to or actually commits suicide we might be in a better position to deal with the underlying causes of these reasons. Let us consider the case of the Verbessem brothers mentioned in my previous posting. I accept it is possible that the reporting of the brother’s case might lead to an increase in the number of the deaf blind wanting euthanasia in Belgium. However reporting the reasons why the brothers wanted to die might also lead to more or better centres for the deaf-blind. It follows reporting the brother’s case might well lead to an increase of options available to the deaf-blind, which in turn might lead to a reduction in the number of deaf-blind people seeking to end their lives.

So far I have argued that someone’s suicide should be reported and the reasons for her suicide should also be reported. However it would be a mistake to think all individuals who commit suicide can give reasons for doing so. Some individuals might commit suicide simply because they have a lack of reasons to go on living. Harry Frankfurt would class such persons as wantons (1). I have previously suggested such a person suffers from the unbearable lightness of simply being, see riots and the unbearable lightness of simply being. A wanton is someone moved by mere impulse and inclination and someone to whom nothing much matters. Such a person may well be prone to commit suicide. They may also be prone to becoming terrorists and other violence, see self respect and love. The reporting of suicides could well lead to such persons committing copy cat suicides. Moreover in such cases the reporting of suicides will not lead to any long term decrease in suicide committed by such people. Such people give us reason not to report suicide, or at least to do so in a very limited way.

In the above I have argued that, when someone has a reason to commit suicide, the reporting of her suicide and her attendant reasons, even if it leads to some copy cat suicides, is in the long term beneficial. However I have also suggested that for a certain class of suicidal persons such reporting is harmful. Should then suicide be fully reported? On balance I believe it should, I am however open to persuasion and comments are most welcome.

1. Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press, page 106.