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Background: National recommendations for news media on how to report on suicide in safe ways (i.e., without creating contagion) were first created in 1991, and were updated in 2005 and 2011. The recommendations are based on research from numerous nations, showing that certain kinds of reporting leads to imitative behavior, and that the use of journalistic guidelines can help to reduce suicide events. Despite the presence of these recommendations, many journalists and news outlets are unaware of them or of the need for such guidance.
Program background: Know the Signs (KTS) is a statewide social marketing suicide prevention program in California. Over two years, we presented six forums throughout the state that were designed to reach news media, suicide prevention practitioners, and community members. We also created a toolkit to help county behavioral health agencies, advocates and others reach out to the media with their suicide prevention messages. The toolkit includes the Recommendations, which were also distributed to journalists through a variety of methods such as guild publications, press releases, and individual response to media requests.
Evaluation Methods and Results: KTS created a tool to measure and analyze adherence to the recommendations and applied it to news coverage appearing over six months in 2011 (pre-dissemination) and again in 2013 (after the forums and other activities). Forum attendees were also surveyed to learn what additional steps they had taken, barriers encountered, and other lessons.
Conclusions: Most forum attendees were not journalists, but there were many county PIOs and practitioners. Almost 50% of attendees said they were familiar with the Recommendations prior to the forum. More than 90% of attendees had taken some action since the forum (reached out to media, submitted an op/ed or letter to the editor, changed an organizational message, shared the Recommendations with others). 65% had not experienced any barriers, but 12% said this kind of activity was not their job. As one commented, “It’s just HARD to change media reporting style and tradition”. The analysis of media coverage showed that even when mental health or suicide experts were interviewed (as the Recommendations call for), their quotes did not adhere to the Recommendations. Common “errors” were: indicating that suicide is the result of a single cause (most often, depression); indicating that “you could never tell” someone was thinking about suicide; and reinforcing the notion that “no one wants to talk about” this issue.
Implications for research and/or practice: As a result of our findings, the KTS team is now focusing its efforts on helping the “messengers” (those involved in suicide prevention) improve their narrative and the message that they present to the news media and to their general audiences.