Reporting suicides

You have to at least acknowledge the issue of cause of death, even if it's just to say "The family has not said how Mason died." To leave it out entirely is kind of absurd.

By the way, a friend of the family died a few months ago. The obit said she "died suddenly." My mom assumed that the friend had a relapse of breast cancer. She didn't realize that "died suddenly" is almost invariably code for suicide. Kind of silly that we still do this -- I can't imagine it makes it much easier for the family to deal with when no one is told the actual cause.

 

That I do not know. Good question, however.

 

Um, bail?

 

Not after being convicted.

 

I found the story. He died on Tuesday, and was scheduled to plead guilty to felony DWI on Wednesday, which would have put him in prison for 10 years.

This was in 2010, so my facts were a big foggy. Apologies.

Man who shot himself on McLennan County Courthouse lawn identified

 

We're a few days in now, and we have about 90 comments on our Facebook page (which cannot be disabled, as someone previously asked). The majority of them are calling us terrible and awful people, and we've received about eight or nine one-star reviews. All of that is OK. I know we did our jobs. Giving a newspaper a one-star review on Facebook because you don't like a story it has published is the adult internet version of throwing a temper tantrum.

There are a few people who said we shouldn't be shying away from reporting about suicides, but then gave us grief because we didn't provide links within the story where people can go to learn more about mental illness. I must have missed where we advertised ourselves as reporters/psychiatrists. One woman said she's been a subscriber for years and not once has she ever seen a name attached to a suicide/bridge jumper. It took me all of 12 seconds to do an archive search where I found four within the past five years. All identified. Here's the difference: We haven't put them online before. They were in the paper, probably on Page A4 or A5, but the reporting was the same. This one went into a bit more detail because the school had announced earlier in the day that the man had died. That's the funny thing about this internet: People want their news at their fingertips, until they read something they don't like. If it were just in the hard copy of the paper, nobody would give a shit.

If there was one regrettable thing about this episode, it's the headline that was used: "Assistant principal dies after leap from bridge." I certainly believe we could have used a more sensitive headline, although that headline is quite factual.

The one surprising thing thus far is that the police department handling the situation, which isn't in our coverage area, but just beyond, has yet to identify the body. Of course we'd like to do a follow-up story once they do but I'm not sure what's taking so long. If you find a body in a public space, you have to publicly identify it, no?

 

I know it's one of those things we mock here, but for those wondering about help there's always a breakout for the dreaded "Grief counselors were at Podunk High ..." story .

And, yes, when I've done stories that are sensitive and readers complain about the play, subject matter, ect., but not the journalism, I know I have done a good job.

 

" no foul play is suspected in xxxx's death."

suicide?

 

Sometimes, but not necessarily. I think it’s just used when someone is found unresponsive rather than suffering a long illness or complaining of chest pains, etc.