The chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation on the role that media can play in helping vulnerable people, and the "inarguable" link between suicide reporting and increased suicidal behaviour.
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New Zealand’s laws around suicide reporting have been hotly debated since they were first implemented. Many people, mostly journalists but sometimes families of those lost to suicide, have chafed against these laws, and advocated for complete openness in reporting suicide.
New Zealand has a resource, developed in partnership with media, that guides the reporting by New Zealand media of all suicides and related topics. Many New Zealand journalists are happy to reduce the risks around suicide reporting by following these guidelines.
If all restrictions were lifted it would not be helpful, and evidence suggests it would be harmful to vulnerable people, including individuals who have been bereaved by suicide. Conversely, limited reporting restrictions are not harmful, but can protect vulnerable people and reduce the risk of exposing them to potentially triggering or distressing material.
Earlier this month, The Wireless published an interview with Dr James Hollings, journalism lecturer at Massey University. Dr Hollings advocates for the removal of all statutory restrictions on suicide reporting, and suggested that the research surrounding the dangers of suicide reporting has been misinterpreted, taken out of context, or acted upon prematurely.
Like Dr Hollings, I believe New Zealand would benefit from informed public conversation around suicide prevention. However informed debate cannot take place with misinformation, and the majority of the statistics in his interview with The Wireless were incorrect.
Australia’s suicide rate, far from being halved in recent years, has been trending upwards since 2004. Their current suicide rate is 10.9 per 100,000, a negligible difference from New Zealand’s 11 per 100,000.
Dr Hollings seems to be choosing his evidence very selectively, but in fact the research is unequivocal: there is an inarguable link between suicide reporting and increased suicidal behaviour in vulnerable people. Explicit references to methods of suicide, for example, have been linked to increases in the use of that method or location and overall suicide rates.
Sadly, there is plenty of evidence demonstrating a copycat effect when celebrity suicides are widely reported, and we can also look to our own experiences to back this up. When a very well-known person died by suicide in 2014, we repeatedly heard from people all around New Zealand who wondered “if it didn’t get better for him, why would it get better for me?” We worked closely with New Zealand media at the time to minimise the harmful effects of covering this story, and to ensure that anyone who needed help knew how to access it. We were very grateful for the compassion and cooperation of journalists and newsrooms over this; it made a real difference.
I am unaware of any recent research suggesting that reporting individual suicidal deaths can be protective for vulnerable readers. However, we do know of some evidence to suggest that media can play a role in suicide prevention by telling recovery stories – profiling people who have felt suicidal and gone on to live well.
The subject of suicide has not been ‘effectively banned’, and a recent report by the Law Commission found that New Zealand media regularly report on suicide.
We know that many members of the New Zealand media want very much to help prevent suicide. Media can help to raise awareness of suicide prevention, and share with their audience information about how to support others, learning to identify warning signs and knowing what to do when they spot them. We can decrease risk and increase understanding, but only if we use the knowledge that we have gained and work together.
Judi Clements
Chief Executive
Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand