“Resilience is the happy knack of being able to bungee jump through the pitfalls of life”.

115 Pages·2013·2.44 MB·English

Media Coverage of Suicide: Local
Experience & Future Direction
Mario Cappelli, Ph.D.,C.Psych.
Director, Mental Health Research, CHEO,
Chair Research Action Area Cmt. – Community Suicide Prevention Network
Clinical & Adjunct Professor of Psychology & Psychiatry, University of Ottawa &
Member of the Faculty Graduate Post-Doctoral Studies
Clinical Director, Summit Centre
Acknowledgements:
Our Mental Health Emerg. ResearchTeam:

Paula Cloutier
Roger Zemek
Clare Gray
Liz Glennie
Allison Kennedy
Mona Jabbour
Sarah Reid
Heather Bragg
Alicia Biafore
Stephanie Leon
Nathalie Gillen
Chantale Melo
Liam Casey: Suicide Notes - I contemplated killing myself five
years ago. Now, to help others, I call on all journalists to break
the silence on our final taboo. Published in the Ryerson Review
of Journalism, Dec. 22, 2010
My heart thumps as I scramble out of bed and grab the phone. Anita Murray, my assignment editor at the Ottawa Citizen,
tells me the police have pulled a body from the Rideau Canal. The third day of my internship had been reserved for
training until police discovered the “floater” around dawn. I find nothing at the scene, but a photographer has already
come and gone, so a brief item appears online with a photo of the body bag.

The newsroom buzzes when I arrive, or maybe that’s just my heart, fluttering away. Murray tells me to follow up with
police. About an hour later, the cops say he was a “jumper,” but that’s just for my information since, the officer tells me,
the paper doesn’t report suicides. I hang up, stroll over to Murray and Rob Bostelaar, another editor, and tell them the
man killed himself. They tell me not to pursue it further. I move on to a story about a man trying to lure a child into his van
near a public school. At least it means I can avoid writing about suicide…

There were 3,743 reported suicides in Canada in 2005; I was nearly number 3,744. The media cover murder-suicides,
celebrity suicides and the odd “normal” suicide. But that’s just a fraction of them. Conversely, there were 658 murders that
…
year, and all received coverage
Fortunately, the stigma that surrounds all mental-health afflictions is slowly fading. Depression is much better
understood, which I attribute to deeper and more informed coverage. But other afflictions, such as schizophrenia and
bipolar disorder, remain underreported. Suicide is still a dirty word, but maybe that’s starting to change. In November,
the Globe ran a front-page story about Daron Richardson’s suicide. Of course, it was a story only because her father
is Luke Richardson, a former NHL defenceman and now assistant coach with the Ottawa Senators. The following day,
a Globe editorial claimed suicide “is no longer the taboo it has been.” If that’s true, the paper must continue to cover it.
Overview of the Presentation
• Review media guidelines for reporting of suicide
• Impact of media reports on local mental health services:
Emergency Department of CHEO
• Where to go from here:
• CHEO’s Emergency Department
• Community Response
• Questions & Feedback
Daron & Jamie
• Daron Richardson: Suicided November 12, 2010
– Extensive media coverage immediately following her death
– Extensive media coverage following the public memorial

• Jamie Hubley: Suicided October 11, 2011
– Extensive media coverage immediately after his death
– Extensive media coverage of bullying, mental health, and suicide
Why this is an important issue:
The “Werther & Papageno
Effects”
• Used to describe either the negative or preventive effects
of media’s coverage of suicide
• Werther Effect (negative): Origin is Goethe’s novel “The
sorrows of young Werther (1774)” describes a young man
died by suicide for love by shooting himself
• Papageno Effect (positive): Origin is Mozart’s opera the
“The magic flute (1791) where again a young man in love
becomes becomes suicidal but with the support of friends
he is able to cope
Media Guidelines: Canadian Association for
Suicide Prevention
To discourage imitative or copycat suicides, it is important to avoid or
minimize:

Reporting specific details of the method
Descriptions of a suicide as unexplainable e.g., “He had everything going for him.”
Reporting romanticized versions of the reasons for the suicide(s), e.g., “We want to be
together for all eternity.”
Simplistic reasons for the suicide, e.g., “Boy commits suicide because he has to wear
braces.”

In addition, the print media can reduce the imitative effect by:

Printing story on inside page
If story must appear on first page, print it below the fold
Avoid the word “suicide” in the headline
Avoid printing a photo of the person who committed suicide
Where do you go from here: Emergency
Department
• CHEO Emergency Department: Developed of the HEADS-
ED tool (www.heads-ed.com)