Reporting suicides

Good God. Killed in the line of duty?

There are times when that job is stressful. There are times when it's about cooking gourmet meals and working out, too.

 

I always felt like suicides should be as fully reported as any other story, with emphasis and "play" depending on the person, publicity and circumstances involved, just like any other story.

I mean, we report every homicide -- including the method involved -- even the murders of relative nobodies, with as full information as reporters are able to work up, without a lot of attention paid to sensitivity. Why are suicides different?

Nothing need be embellished or overdone, of course, but I'm not sure the families of murders/other deaths are any less embarrassed/privacy-invaded/thrilled about the details of cases being reported, either, and it gets done anyway.

 

The coverage was fine, but the reaction isn't that alarming. Knowing you could die any day you go to work is a lot more stressful than your average job, and that kind of thing bonds firefighters, cops, military members (and their loved ones) in a way most people don't understand. Most people think working out and eating relatively well erases the inherent danger/related stress of such a job.

Also, I've eaten dozens of great meals cooked at firehouses. I wouldn't call any of them "gourmet."

 

Why are suicides, in which a person decides to end his or her own life, "different" than homicides, in which a person's life is ended by another?

Why might the former be a more sensitive topic for the survivors than that latter?

That's your question?

 

A local football coach's wife once killed herself during the season, and he missed a game or two in the aftermath. He talked to me at length about her and about coping, but ultimately determined he didn't want to go on the record. He was torn between drawing attention to depression and his concern, which won out, that his young son would find out how his mother died from a Google search instead of from him.

 

However you report it, remember that they died. They didn't pass away or whatever other phrase you want to use.

And also, for something like that, why wouldn't you lock the comments?

 

Yes, public figure or public place, suicide gets reported. A guy I went to high school with shot himself on the lawn of the county courthouse after being convicted of felony DWI, which was going to send him to prison for a long while. The local daily caught hell for covering the story, but the guy chose to kill himself in a public spot.

 

Retired longtime football coach at one of our local high schools killed himself at home and we didn't report it. He was in his mid-50s. I did a short story ahead of the memorial service, running down his accomplishments and stating he died at home. Those who knew him knew the circumstances.

Sad thing is, his first wife committed suicide early in his coaching tenure, so their now mid-20s son lost both parents that way.

 

We had a high school basketball coach, who had been dismissed and was just finishing out the school year before moving on, commit suicide when he walked into the locker room one morning before classes started and shot himself in the head. This happened at the largest private school in the area. I went out and talked to a few people, wrote what I thought was a pretty good story on it, but the editor (who just happened to live next door to the coach and his family) spiked it. His rationale was that he wanted to spare the family's feelings. I didn't agree, but I didn't push it. My gut instinct tells me that if it had been a public school, and the editor hadn't been so close to the family, the story would have run.

 

How the hell did he get out of custody long enough to shoot himself after being convicted of felony DWI punishable by imprisonment?

 

That's what's odd about this whole business. We can't come out directly and say what happened, but we can sure telegraph it.