Whispering about suicide doesn’t help
Journalists must navigate moral quandary
Good storytellers know that tight details and bold words are the tools that make the craft powerful. Don’t say the girl is cute, describe the pattern of freckles on her nose. Don’t tell me the widow misses her husband, show me how she takes his coat out of the closet at 5:30 p.m. and hangs it over the chair where he would toss it when he came home from work.
Suicide prevention experts know from solid research that too many details in a story about a suicide can prompt others to kill themselves.
In between those two truths is a vacuum, an empty spot where no one talks about suicide. Yet health experts know that public education can lower rates of preventable death. And suicide deaths are in theory preventable.
This is the moral quandary that journalists and other storytellers must navigate when they approach the subject of suicide.
For years, the topic was verboten in journalism. In addition to the fear of prompting more suicides, journalists wanted to spare families the shame and stigma associated with suicide.
When I began my career as a journalist in the early 1990s, it was a rule of obituary writing to include the cause of death — unless it was a suicide. For those in the know, that missing piece of information served as an unspoken code, a whisper.
You cannot solve a public health problem by whispering. Whether it’s the AIDS epidemic or the opioid crisis, the mass media play a critical role by telling the story in different ways. We survey the landscape from 30,000 feet, documenting trends. And we draw in close, so the audience can see and feel. It takes both kinds of stories to make an impact.
Yet, the very real problem of contagion keeps journalists from telling the story of suicide in a meaningful way. We swoop in when a celebrity dies by suicide — Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams. But just as quickly we pull away, often causing harm, rarely offering any insight.
Laura Trujillo’s tender story, detailing how she and her family recovered from her mother’s death by suicide, is the exception. Published this morning by USA TODAY, the story provides a raw and intimate glimpse into a reality that is usually reserved for those who’ve lived it themselves.
I was privileged to a play a small part. I read two of the drafts and made suggestions to USA TODAY about how it might minimize the harmful effects of contagion.
For 15 years, I’ve worked extensively with suicide prevention experts to develop best practices on covering suicide. We’ve created courses at The Poynter Institute for journalists who want to learn more. I’ve taught workshops on the topic. As a result of our ongoing collaboration, I’ve built a professional friendship with Dan Reidenberg, the executive director of the Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention through education. I’ve counseled hundreds of journalists on stories, big and small, encouraging editors to include educational material and avoid the details that lead to more suicides.
I commend Laura and her editors. They told an unflinching and uncompromising story. Laura dragged events from deep within her memory and put them on a page so that you, the audience, might see and understand a bit more about suicide.
After reading what was intended to be a final draft of the essay, I made dozens of suggestions. Although it was clearly difficult to reopen the editing process, Laura and her editors thoughtfully considered my ideas and in the end accepted many of my recommendations.
The result is a story that may mark a division in how we in the news media treat suicide. Perhaps this story in a publication as respectable as USA TODAY will give editors everywhere permission to cover this story in a way that sheds light and educates families who need to know that it wasn’t their fault.