Media push for more freedom in suicide reports

News organisations want a freer hand to report on suicide and largely ignore existing Health Ministry suggestions, a Government-financed study has found.

"Senior media professionals strongly oppose restrictions on suicide reporting and believe the Coroners Act 1988 is unduly restrictive," says the Canterbury University study, released yesterday by Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton.

He also made public the latest provisional suicide figures, for 2002, which show a continuing decline from a peak in 1998.

There were 460 suicides in 2002. This is a reduction in the suicide rate of 25 per cent from 1998, but it is still the sixth-highest rate among the developed nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The study's authors, Jim Tully and Nadia Elsaka, of the university's School of Political Science and Communication, recommend against simply modifying the ministry's existing media resource on suicide, a handbook which one newspaper editor told them "seemed like an edict".

The ministry should instead consider developing suicide reporting protocols with the media, as proposed by the Commonwealth Press Union, as the basis of self-regulation.

Mental health experts argue that careless or sensational reporting of suicides could lead to more people killing themselves, the "copy-cat" effect, especially if details of the method of death were published.

But Mr Tully said yesterday that the news industry did not consider the research on this was conclusive.

Gavin Ellis, the former chairman of the press union's New Zealand media freedom committee, told the researchers the media treated suicide with care.

"I can think of no editor who would stoop to some of the things that apparently worry health officials," the study quotes him as saying.

The co-director of Suicide Prevention Information New Zealand, Merryn Statham, said the media were variable in how well they handled suicide reporting.

She commended the Herald's "responsible" coverage of the death of Crowded House drummer Paul Hester, but said the majority of other news reports ignored the ministry's suggestions and stated the method of his death.

This could lead to copy-cat suicides, particularly since he was a celebrity.

Mr Anderton said: "There is no intention that media guidelines act as a form of censorship, rather they are a way to help discourage unsafe reporting."

The study's recommendations would be considered in the development of an All Ages Suicide Prevention Strategy, expected to be released for public consultation by midyear.

Reporting guidelines

The Health Ministry's resource handbook on reporting suicides recommends that media:

* Avoid the word "suicide" in headlines.

* Refrain from using photographs, such as of a funeral.

* Never report the method of a suicide, as this "may lead to imitation".