Celebrity suicide and its effect on further media reporting and portrayal of suicide: An exploratory study

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.

Do online media adhere to the responsible suicide reporting guidelines? A cross sectional study from India

BACKGROUND

The content and nature of media reports could influence suicide prevention measures.

AIM

To evaluate contemporary online media reports' compliance with guidelines for responsible reporting of suicidal acts from Indian resources.

METHODS

We included English and Hindi articles for reports concerning suicide, published by local and national media sources for 30 consecutive days from the day of death of a celebrity by alleged suicide. The search was performed in Google News with predefined search queries and selection criteria. Two independent investigators did data extraction. Subsequently, each news report was assessed against guidelines for the responsible reporting of suicide by the WHO and the Press Council of India.

RESULTS

We identified 295 articles (Hindi n = 172, English n = 123). Results showed more than 80% of the media reports deviated from at least one criterion of the recommendations. A maximum breach was seen in the news article's headlines, sensational reportage and detailed suicide methods description. Significant differences were seen in the quality of English and Hindi reporting and reporting celebrity and noncelebrity suicide. Additional items revealed were reporting suicide pacts, linking multiple suicides in a single news report, allowing user-generated threads and linking Religion and suicide.

CONCLUSION

Measures are required to implement reporting recommendations in the framework of a national suicide prevention strategy.

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

OBJECTIVE

Little is known about changes in quality of media reporting of suicide in the community following a celebrity suicide. Our objective was to compare trends in quality of media reporting of suicide, before and after the suicide of an Indian entertainment celebrity, against the World Health Organization suicide reporting guidelines.

METHOD

Online news portals of English and local language newspapers, as well as television channels, were searched to identify relevant suicide-related news articles. Comparison of reporting characteristics before and after the celebrity suicide was performed using chi-square test or Fisher's exact test.

RESULTS

A total of 3867 eligible news reports were retrieved. There was a significant increase in harmful reporting characteristics, such as reporting the name, age and gender of the deceased (p < 0.001 for all comparisons), mentioning the location (p < 0.001) and reason for suicide (p = 0.04) and including photos of the deceased (p = 0.002) following the celebrity suicide. Helpful reporting practices were less affected; there was a significant rise in inclusion of expert opinion (p = 0.04) and mention of suicide-related warning signs (p = 0.02).

CONCLUSION

Following a celebrity suicide, significant changes in the quality of media reporting of suicide were noted with an increase in several potentially harmful reporting characteristics.

Online media reporting of suicidal behaviour in Ghana: Analysis of adherence to the WHO guidelines

BACKGROUND

Irresponsible media reporting of suicide is a potential risk for copycat suicide. There is a paucity of studies from sub-Saharan Africa on the quality of media reporting of suicide.

OBJECTIVES

We assessed the compliance of Ghanaian online media outlets with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for media reporting of suicide.

METHODS

We searched 10 local media outlets with strong online presence in Ghana, to identify suicide-related news reports from 2000 through 2019. We applied summative content analysis and chi-square (χ2) test to the data.

RESULTS

We included 288 news reports, of which 261 (90.6%) were completed suicides, 7 (2.4%) were attempted suicides and 20 (6.9%) were homicide suicides. Most of the news reports failed to comply with the WHO guidelines: 92.7% mentioned the specific method of the suicide act, 82.6% included 'suicide' in the headline and 55.6% included photos of the victims. The χ2 tests indicated that privately owned media outlets were more likely than publicly owned to post a photo of the victim, χ2(1) = 17.37, p < .001, and report the incident location in the headline, χ2(1) = 15.00, p < .001. However, generally, there were no statistically significant relationships between the quality of reporting and media outlet ownership. Each of the 288 reports failed to mention any of the potentially helpful features recommended by the WHO guidelines.

CONCLUSION

Regardless of the ownership of the media outlet (whether private or publicly owned), mostly, the online reportage of suicidal behaviour in Ghana deviates sharply from the international recommended best practice by the WHO.

The quality of online media reporting of celebrity suicide in India and its association with subsequent online suicide-related search behaviour among general population: An infodemiology study

The literature reports increased suicide rates among general population in the weeks following the celebrity suicide, known as the Werther effect. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidelines for responsible media reporting of suicide. The present study aimed to assess the quality of online media reporting of a recent celebrity suicide in India and its impact on the online suicide related search behaviour of the population. A total of 200 online media reports about Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide published between 14th to 20th June 2020 were assessed for quality of reporting following the checklist prepared using the WHO guidelines. Further, we examined the change in online suicide-seeking and help-seeking search behaviour of the population following celebrity suicide for the month of June using selected keywords. In terms of potentially harmful media reportage, 85.5 % of online reports violated at least one WHO media reporting guideline. In terms of potentially helpful media reportage, only 13 % articles provided information about where to seek help for suicidal thoughts or ideation. There was a significant increase in online suicide-seeking (U = 0.5, p < 0.05) and help-seeking (U = 6.5, p < 0.05) behaviour after the reference event, when compared to baseline. However, the online peak search interest for suicide-seeking was greater than help-seeking. This provides support for a strong Werther effect, possibly associated with poor quality of media reporting of celebrity suicide. There is an urgent need for taking steps to improve the quality of media reporting of suicide in India.

Fidelity assessment of the suicide reporting guidelines in Korean newspapers

BACKGROUND

With the dishonor of being the highest suicide rated country in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, South Korea should take more initiatives in suicide prevention. Although the role of the media and its relation to actual suicide attempts has been tested and supported by many studies, the suicide reporting guidelines are not well followed. The purpose of this study is to examine how well Korean newspapers adhere to existing guidelines and to suggest limitation and improvements for the current guidelines.

METHODS

Five mainstream newspapers in South Korea, namely, Kyunghyang Shinmun, Hankyoreh, Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Daily, and Dong-A Ilbo, were chosen for the analysis. Using the Naver news search engine, articles dated from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2017, were selected with the keyword "suicide" and advanced option "printed newspaper." However, articles, columns, opinions, and reviews that utilized the word "suicide" in a general context were excluded from the final analysis. Finally, the number of cases was narrowed down to 368. Each article was analyzed using the guideline framework consisting of 13 items: sensational coverage, overstatement, direct wording, method used, details about site/location, photographs, suicide note, generalization, speculation, romanticization, interviews with the bereaved, help-seeking information, and public education.

RESULTS

More than 60% of the articles included direct wording (63.9%), mentioned the method used (68.2%), and provided details about the site or location (74.5%). Nearly half of the articles revealed the contents of the suicide note (44.6%). Less than 3% of the suicide reports had information about hotline logo or phone numbers (1.4%) and facts regarding suicide and suicide prevention (2.2%).

CONCLUSIONS

Our study revealed that the guidelines were ineffective in their monitoring role and that most of the newspapers were incompliant with many significant guideline items in South Korea. Our findings not only explore the limitations of the current guidelines but also provide an important rationale as to why there should be stronger suicide monitoring regulation or an agency with sufficient authority to prevent suicide in a nation-wide scale.