Changing trends in quality of media reporting of suicide in the community following a celebrity suicide in India

"Dressed like boys, hair trimmed, a nalla kutti otherwise": construction of queer suicide in Indian online news media

Suicide is a significant newsworthy event, and the media often cover cases involving queer individuals. However, there is a notable lack of research on the quality of reporting of queer suicide cases within the Indian context. This article aims to address the existing gap in Indian online news media by investigating the portrayal of queer suicide via content analysis. Content analysis involves qualitatively condensing and interpreting data to extract key consistencies and meanings from a plethora of qualitative material. The newspapers considered span from 2005 to 2022, with data collection conducted in 2023. The author alone identified news articles on queer suicide and conducted the subsequent content analysis. The study reveals that reporting on queer suicide tends to divide queer couples into the gender binary and describes what it deems to be careless sexual conduct driven by obsessive queer love, which, in turn, is blamed for the suicide. Moreover, these reports often do the following: feature families who refuse to accept their children's identities, adopt dread-filled tones, and cite experts who provide incorrect information while engaging in victim blaming. As a result, the quality of queer suicide reporting in Indian newspapers is deemed substandard and offensive. To address this issue, the study proposes the need for training and curriculum updates in journalistic courses. This way, reporters can develop the skills necessary to sensitively and respectfully report on queer individuals in general and on queer suicide in particular.

Long-Term Changes in the Quality of Media Reporting of Suicide Following a Celebrity Suicide in India

Online portals of selected English and local language newspapers and television channels were searched to identify suicide news reports published one year after the celebrity suicide (ACS). These reports (n = 1952) were compared with the corresponding period of the previous year, immediately following the celebrity suicide (ICS) (n = 2486), and a three-month period before the celebrity suicide (BCS) (n = 1381) to assess longitudinal changes in quality of media reporting. There was a decline in reporting of several potentially harmful characteristics over time such as mentioning the deceased's age and gender (p < .001 for both), and location of suicide (p < .001). The quality of media reporting of suicide was significantly better at one year compared to the period immediately following celebrity suicide. This change was mainly driven by an improvement in the reporting quality of English news reports while local language reports continued to remain poorly adherent to reporting guidelines.

Nigerian newspapers coverage of suicide: Assessment of adherence to WHO suicide reporting guidelines

Context

Despite an increase in research evidence on media compliance with suicide reporting guidelines globally, evidence from Nigeria seems to be relatively limited.

Aim

This study assessed the prevalence of World Health Organization (WHO) helpful/harmful suicide reporting cues in suicide stories reported by Nigerian newspapers in 2021.

Setting and Design

The setting is the entire Nigeria and the design is descriptive.

Method

Quantitative content analysis method was adopted and 205 online suicide-related stories from news portals of 10 purposefully selected newspapers were analyzed. The newspapers selected were among the top 20 in Nigeria and had higher circulation/coverage and considerable online presence. Evaluation framework was designed following moderated WHO guidelines.

Statistical Analysis Used

Descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) were used for the analysis.

Results

The study suggested high prevalence of harmful reporting and near absence of helpful suicide reporting cues among Nigerian newspapers. Majority of the stories, 95.6% mentioned suicide in the headline; 79.5% provided details on the suicide methods employed; 66.3% offered mono-causal explanation to suicide; and 59% featured images of suicide victims and/or suicide-related graphics. Helpful reporting cues were almost nonexistence as only less than 4% of the stories traced warning signs, reported mental health experts/professionals' opinions, featured research findings/population level statistics, and provided details on the identity/contact of suicide prevention programs/support services.

Conclusion

Prevalence of harmful suicide-reporting practice among Nigerian Newspaper presented a gloomy future for suicide prevention in the country. There be training and motivation programs for health/crime reporters/editors on responsive media coverage of suicide following (a domesticated) WHO guidelines.

Quality of Media Reporting of Suicide in Nepal

Objectives. Suicide is a major public health concern. Sensible media reporting of suicide is one of the important prevention strategies. There has been no report assessing the quality of media reporting of suicide in Nepal. We aimed to assess the quality of newspaper reporting of suicide in Nepal against the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting guidelines. Methods. We undertook a content analysis study of articles from the online archives on reporting of suicide deaths in six English language (daily or weekly) newspapers published in Nepal over the two-year duration from a period between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. Also, we compared them with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Results. A total of 165 English newspaper articles reporting on suicide were analyzed. 163 (98.8%) of news were published in the main section of the newspaper, and the mean length was 17.6 sentences. The name and age of the person who died of suicide were mentioned in about 69.1% ( $n=114$ ) and 53.3% ( $n=88$ ) articles, respectively. The most common method of suicide reported in the news articles was hanging (45.5%, $n=75$ ), followed by poisoning (11.5%, $n=19$ ). About 97.6% ( $n=161$ ) of news articles violated the recommendation provided in the WHO guidelines. Conclusions. The adherence to the WHO guidelines for media reporting of suicide in Nepal was found to be poor, with a large majority of news reports having at least one potentially harmful media characteristic. Only a small minority of news reports included potentially helpful information to prevent suicide.