Interesting column on reporting about Robin Williams' suicide

I agree with the article in principle, especially for a public figure, but I've covered way too many suicides of youth, and it's not as easy as "these are the facts, report them" in those cases.

Each case is different and should be treated in the most sensitive way possible. It is our job to report news, but it doesn't have to be bereft of compassion.

 

If it's a suicide and public officials or the family of the deceased share that information, then go right at it. I don't care if it helped "uncover a trend" to add the suicide info to his little Podunk Press story, the kid was not a public figure and the family had a right to their privacy. This reporter pried into a private and tragic family matter that had no bearing on anything in that community. This guy is just wrong. Period.

Now, say you have the OK to report it as a suicide ... do the details really matter if no one else was involved? No. They don't. And you can't make a case they did. If a Dr. Kevorkian was involved, you have something. "Death by asphyxia" was plenty of information in the Williams case. We all can extrapolate from there. If you do feel the need to report every gruesome detail? You only need to do it once and not refer to it over and over again in subsequent stories. To do so just makes you a douchebag, not a journalist.

 

I am with you to an extent here. Just reporting "death by self-inflicted gun shot wound" is plenty in Cobain's case, I think.

 

Actually, that's very vague.

Did he hang himself? Tie a bag around his head? Inhale helium? Nitrogen?

Either tell what happened. Or tell nothing.

 

Why does it matter? If I read, "death by asphyxiation" I assume he hung himself. If it was a different way, I don't feel the need to know that.

 

No one's advocating telling nothing. But a line can be drawn short of full-frontal explicit detail.
Whether it was by hanging or a plastic bag over the head or a closed garage/running car, none of those details materially affects the news.

But then, I'm someone who didn't need to actually watch the video of James Foley's execution by ISIS to be horrified and pissed off about it.