1. Most people don’t know or care about the dead person, so it doesn’t matter if you report on it or not; they have no opinion about the deceased and the information won’t alter that.
2. There are people who care about the deceased; maybe the family doesn’t want them to know the truth, but these friends can sure be embarrassed by comments they make under the assumption that the deceased didn’t die of suicide. I’d suspect that most of these people that do care about the deceased are told by the ‘family’ the real cause. Or they get it in hushed tones from someone who does know the cause of death. It can be the big elephant in the room for the rest of these families’ lives.
3. Acquaintances — people who know of the person and have either a good or bad opinion of them. That opinion probably won’t change to the worse either, as they’ll either feel sympathetic or wish they’d conducted themselves differently.

“Things don’t make sense when people don’t tell the truth about these things, so questions arise and if the truth is kept secret ... people can get suspicious and suspect wrongdoing.

“There are so many studies of obscure things. I wonder if there are any studies about the amount of secrecy in families where there are suicides. I wonder if families that are more open about hard, true facts have a lower incidence of suicide.”

Laurie Sacho, editor of The Star News in Medford, Wis.: “I think a lot of us struggle with this question. Our policy here for years has been NOT to report suicides unless it is a public figure or the suicide takes place in a public place/manner.

“The arguments you mention against publishing suicides are valid. It does make public a very private family tragedy, and hurts family members tremendously. It differs from other ‘crimes’ in that there is no one to ‘protect’ by making the incident public. I think the jury is also out on whether reporting suicides inspires someone else to seek similar publicity. I would rather err on the side of caution.

“We have asked this question of groups visiting our newspaper over the years, and they almost unanimously tell us they do not want us to report suicides ... that would just be sensationalizing something painful in order to sell newspapers.”

Carol Picard, editor of the Rocky Mountain Outlook in Canmore, Alberta: “I’ve been working in community newspapers for a dozen years (in one community). We have only reported suicides when they involve public resources, i.e. a body that had to be recovered by park wardens or rangers, or RCMP. It is covered off in a single paragraph: ‘The body of a man was discovered in his vehicle on the Spray Lakes Road Sunday by hikers in the area. Foul play is not suspected, and there is no ongoing investigation.’

“Were it to be a suicide within a home, we would not report that. We report death when it is a prominent member of the community or an unusual circumstance, i.e. a child whose battle with cancer has been previously documented, a local person killed in a car accident or a fall from a mountain. Several years ago in a neighbouring community a very prominent young businessman killed himself, with the suspicion being that he had racked up huge, insurmountable gambling debts. I was not at the paper that covered the story, and the final line stated: ‘The cause of death has not been disclosed.’

“In a small community, everybody seems to know what’s going on anyway, and the official obituary submitted by the family or the funeral home serves to record the passing for the official record. Compounding the family’s pain with a public airing of the circumstances, I feel, is unnecessary. Just as I will not run photographs of a ‘local’ dead body, I don’t publish stories about suicides.”

Bob Trapp Jr., managing editor of the Rio Grande Sun in Española, N.M.: “Nothing is worse for a reporter than speaking to a family member after one of their loved ones has died, regardless of the way they died. But it goes with the gig. We have a relatively huge number of heroin overdoses here and hear from family members regularly who state the dead person never did drugs, it was an accident, someone shot the drugs into him, etc.

“Rio Arriba County also has one of the highest teen suicide rates in the country. We hear from those parents also.

“Bottom line: we run them all. We sympathize with the parents but when someone dies, it’s news. I like the idea of adding a graf about a suicide hotline. We believe not printing the story adds to the problem. Let’s run the stories, get the topic out there and get the community talking about it instead of trying to hide it. The person who committed suicide was hiding the problem for a long time, or the family was completely out of touch with the family member who killed himself or herself.

“We believe it’s the newspaper’s responsibility to start the dialogue. Not printing suicide stories is a disservice to the community.”

Judy Johnson, editor of The Times of Acadiana in Lafayette, La.: “Suicides are desperate acts by people who have spun out of control. How does covering their death bring any sort of closure to a community or shed any light on the prevention of future suicides?

“I don’t see the reporting of suicides, except in very narrowly defined areas, as necessary. They are usually very private acts; if they have been committed in a way that has made it difficult for the community to know about the act, then reporting it is the most basic invasion of privacy.

“The only suicides that should be reported as individual acts are those that are committed in a public space. Someone who jumps off a bridge must be mentioned in the paper, no matter what the time of day. They chose a public space, the public needs to know what happened.

“For instance, a mental patient at a local hospital jumps from a window into a hospital courtyard. The courtyard is almost completely enclosed. Don’t report it.

“A mental patient at a local hospital breaks free and makes her way to the front windows, jumping onto the sidewalk or courtyard in front of the hospital, in full view of anyone coming in or going out. Report it. But, keep it to a brief. Not a full story. Just the bare details.

“Suicide statistics are crucial to some stories, but details are usually far less crucial.
Reporting these is macabre and serves no purpose.

“My call: Don’t report suicides unless they occur in a very public space and can be observed by passers-by. One exception: Public figures. People whose lives are lived in public know that their deaths will also be public.”

Bill Meyer, publisher of the Marion County (Kan.) Record: “I’ve been in community journalism 55 years, and I’m certain that there’s no good way to handle this issue.

“We print the suicide in the news story, if the suicide was a newsworthy event. We do not publish cause of death in obituaries.

“We make no exceptions. The rule is for all. We don’t bend the rules for anyone. Last week I paid a speeding fine, and it’s in our police blotter column this week.”

Bob Estabrook, editor and publisher emeritus of The Lakeville (Ct.) Journal: “Policy on suicides probably caused me more worry than any other single subject during the 16 years I was editor and publisher of The Lakeville Journal, a weekly of 6,500 circulation (then) published in an extremely rural area of northwest Connecticut. After much thought I devised a few principles:

1. Describing a death as suicide implies an awareness of motive I’m not sure any of us has. Even though a person may be found with a bullet in his head and revolver in his hand, we cannot be absolutely certain that in the millisecond after he pulled the trigger he did not change his mind. As I understand it, suicide is a major sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Therefore, ascribing suicide as a motive may tend to doom a person to purgatory in the eyes of the church.
2. Therefore we avoided ‘suicide’ or ‘apparent suicide’ unless we could get the medical examiner (unlikely) or the State Police to say so. We did report that a person was found with a pistol beside him if the police report said that.
3. There is no inherent right of readers to know how a person died unless the death occurs in a public place or the circumstances are suspicious enough to warrant an investigation. We leave it to the family to disclose that a person died of cancer or Hodgkins Disease unless he chose to make this fact public; a suicide at home, say, by an overdose of sleeping pills seems to me in the same category.
4. An obituary ought not to make reference to suicide unless the family chooses to publicize it. If the circumstances of the suicide warrant mention, that ought to be in a separate story, be it on the front page or elsewhere in the paper.

“All that being said, let me acknowledge that I still agonized. Perhaps my worst experience was previously when I was editor of the editorial page of The Washington Post and a U.S. senator came to my office. His son had been arrested in a police dragnet of homosexuals in a public lavatory, and he wanted my help keeping the story out of the paper.

“I explained that this was a matter for the news department and that the policy was to print all arrests on the police blotter. He left unhappy and apparently went to the newsroom and was rebuffed. The next morning I learned that the senator himself had committed suicide.

“Even though I strongly support the policy of treating everyone equally and playing no favorites, I have often asked myself whether if I had been a little more compassionate in listening to the senator’s concerns I might have talked him out of what he did. We shall never know, and this gives me extra reason to try to understand a family’s agony.”

Charles Jenkinson, editor of the Geraldton Guardian in Australia: “Australian (and generally British) newspapers do not report suicides unless it is in the public interest, i.e. it is a murder suicide (we had a mum who drove her car off the harbour wall with her children strapped in) or a prominent figure (political or otherwise). This approach is taken since reporting the suicide act unfairly harms the loved ones of that person.”

Dave Mitchell, editor and publisher of The Point Reyes Light in Point Reyes Station, Calif.: “The Point Reyes Light generally does not mention in obituaries that a person has committed suicide unless the person’s family brings it up themselves or there is an extenuating circumstance. For example, a month ago we reported on an attempted ‘blue suicide.’ (A ‘blue suicide’ consists of trying to get ‘the men in blue’ to shoot you so that you don’t have to shoot yourself.)

“We report on deaths as suicides where there is any suspicion of foul play attached to them. Several years ago, we reported on a restaurateur shooting herself after discovering her bookkeeper had embezzled much of her family’s money. In another case, we reported that a death was suicide after sheriff’s deputies determined that the suicide gun had been replaced with another gun. (It turned out the victim had unknowingly used a stolen gun that was in the house.)

“We haven’t encountered the situation, but we would note that a death was a suicide if it injured another person or if it occurred in public.

“We have reported deaths as suicides when the victim left a message to the public, as maritime author Calvin Kentfield did around 1975. (It was fascinating. He suggested that Chapter 93 of Moby Dick explained his death. The chapter is called ‘The Castaway.’ The Light summarized the chapter in reporting on Kentfield’s death.)

Donna Remer, executive editor of Voice Newspapers in New Baltimore, Mich.: “We use the same new criteria we would apply to any other story when deciding whether or not to report a suicide. If it is a quiet death in the privacy of a person’s home, for example, we do not report it as a suicide. Of course, we do run the obituary but our obits do not necessarily contain the cause of death.

“We do run stories on suicides that are ‘newsworthy.’ For example: The local police officer who shot himself with a service revolver in the locker room; the man who shot his wife, then himself; the suicidal gunman whose threats led police to evacuate a neighborhood; the teen whose suicide led to grief counseling for most of the high school.

“I think the difference between a murder and a suicide, although both can be violent, is that the murder has potential security implications to the community as a whole. A suicide often does not.

“We make judgments every day on whether or not something is newsworthy. This should be no different. In the case Brad describes where the young woman died of a gunshot wound in the home, in the absence of a preliminary report from the law enforcement officials indicating suicide, we would run it the week it happened. If a coroner later determines suicide, we would report that. Until a determination is made that it was suicide, it is a suspicious and violent death ... possibly murder. Publishing the story could bring about more leads for police.

“I think Brad is correct to be cautious about the coroner’s report. One case stands out: A young man who was found dead in his closed garage in his car with the windows down and the motor running. Suicide? Everyone thought so, except his mother. The coroner later ruled accidental. He had been out drinking and his blood alcohol was so high he apparently passed out after hitting the auto-closer for the garage and before turning off the engine.

“The flip side is: How many deaths ruled accidental are actually suicides but without enough evidence to pin it down? We can never be sure.

“I think our criteria is good. If it is newsworthy for some reason other than just the fact that it is a violent death, run it. There will always be critics.”

Roger Holmes, publisher of the Wainwright Star Chronicle in Alberta: “We only report on suicide if the victim is a public figure. Our view is that suicide is caused by untreated depression and the deceased is a victim of a mental illness. People die from all kinds of illness and it is our view that only those deaths of prominent members of the public warrant public news coverage of their deaths.

“Several years ago the serving mayor of our community shot himself in the head three times and died. We reported his death as a suicide. Mostly we were condemned by our readers for this reporting, however, after emotions had settled, which took about six months to a year, people acknowledged that we had done the right thing by pointing out this issue in our community in this case.

“I do not share the view that rape victims should be shielded from identification in publications. It is my view that rape victims are victims of assault and as such should be acknowledged as victims. Hiding the name of a rape victim contributes to the image of this person as ‘damaged goods’ and places women back in the dark ages of property of men.”

Joel Hack, publisher of the Bodega Bay (Calif.) Navigator: “Yes, reporting suicides is difficult. First, when a law enforcement officer even moves in the direction of setting editorial policy, I run the other way. Yes, the true victims of a suicide are those left behind. But isn’t that true in all deaths? We, the living, speak of the loss of the departed. Look at the codified language we use to describe death. I’ve given up waiting for medical examiner’s reports, they too frequently take me far past the deadline.

“The suicide hotline number inclusion after a suicide report crosses the line from reporting to didactic advocacy journalism. Do you also include a number for the local nihilistic, existentialist coffee club?

“Suicide also takes many forms. Who is to say that the mysterious drowning, or single-car crash into a bridge abutment is or isn’t suicide? What about medical suicides? People do hoard prescriptions, that in the proper overdose bring permanent release from pain. What do we know of those who have ‘Do not resuscitate’ orders? That is also a form of suicide. Drawing a distinction at the ‘violent’ cause of death is misleading.

“What happens if the suicide is a prominent and well-known citizen? Do we prevent the survivors from mourning? We, the local and community press, toll the bell. Don’t ask how. The bell still must ring.”

Martha Perkins, editor of the Haliburton County Echo in Ontario: “When I was a journalism student at Ryerson University in Toronto, my professor told me the story about what happened when the papers started reporting on the people who killed themselves by jumping in front of the subway: the number of subway suicides went up. The stories gave the idea to people who were, emotionally, on the edge. Not wanting that type of responsibility, newspapers stopped the practice and society has not been worse off because of it.

“Suicide is one of the most horrible ordeals a family could go through. I have to question why newspapers feel they have ‘a public duty,’ or even a public right to intensify that pain by making it public.

“If newspapers really want to serve a public need, they should be doing stories about the causes of suicide, such as depression, services that are available to help people who are depressed and the agony that families of suicide victims go through.”

William Schanen, editor and publisher of the Ozaukee Press in Port Washington, Wis.: “At Ozaukee Press, we report on suicides as news. Certainly there are some we don’t report on because we don’t know about them. But if they involve police or ambulance services, they are public events and will be the subject of news stories.

“Our stories about suicides tend to be smaller and less prominent than stories about other violent deaths, say a fatal automobile accident. This is out of deference to the families of suicides. One deference we will not grant is to honor requests that the self-inflicted nature of the death not be reported. But that policy only extends to news stories. In obituaries, we do not report that the death was a suicide.

“It is typical to have a story on the news pages reporting the suicide and an obituary for the victim in the same issue that does not mention suicide. That small concession probably does not assuage the hurt of families who are not only grief stricken, but especially in a small town, shamed by the publication of the fact that their loved one took his or her own life. Another instance where the weekly editor’s job isn’t easy.”

David Burton, civic communication specialist for the University of Missouri Outreach and Extension: “I only had one occasion to write about a suicide while a managing editor of a weekly newspaper and that story came out four or five days after the area daily publications had already covered it (an elected official), so that got me off the hook for covering the suicide. So, that does not make me an authority. I reviewed my notes here on that event (yes, I kept a file because of the topic). I saw nothing in there except the following suggestions from the Poynter Institute regarding suicide coverage:

• The story should not be presented in a romanticized or idealized manner.
• The story should mention alternatives to suicide (for example, counseling or a suicide prevention center) and not mention related suicides or a suicide epidemic.
• The story should link suicide with negative outcomes such as pain for the suicide victim and his survivors.
• The story should be short, placed on an inside page and not be repeated.
• Editors should avoid presenting authorities or sympathetic ordinary people speaking for the reasonableness of suicide.

“I also think Brad’s policy of covering violent deaths is good, as long as you have defined violent pretty broadly. For example, swallowing pills isn’t particularly violent. But, from what you wrote I think your policy is good. What you have happening, with all of the requests about delaying stories, is the Pandora’s Box impact of making an exception in one case. You either need to do them universally on their merit and based on your policy, without exception, or don’t do suicide stories as all (which I think would be a disservice to the community).”

Vickie Canfield Peters, retired editor of the Albion (Pa.) News: “Like rape, not reporting the names of the victims makes this a ‘dirty and unspeakable’ crime. During my 20 years in the business, I reported the cause of death in obituaries as a matter of course. When a suicide was involved, I didn’t run a news story but, like all other death notices, reported in the obituary that Joe Smith ‘died by his own hand.’ That was, of course, if I could substantiate it.

“After each incident of suicide, (whether ‘official’ or not) I ran a different kind of information article: talked to counselors, local teens, ministers, and even once found the family of a suicide who agreed to do an interview about the pain they experienced. I was lucky that in my scorelong career, I only had to report on five suicides. In one instance, the family asked me specifically to report the cause of death to let other readers know that all manner of bad things happen in every community, regardless of size.”

Tommy McGraw, publisher of the Sumter County Record-Journal in Livingston, Ala.: “We have faced the same pleas that Brad is facing, not to publish suicides. A few years back we went to a shooting scene (didn’t know it at the time that it was a suicide). The man put a shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger in his back yard. The family owned a local business and the family friend, the bank president, lived next door. The bank president snatched the camera out of the reporter’s hands when she arrived. (We wouldn’t have taken a photo anyway.) Later the bank president brought the camera in and threatened to pull advertising and ask all citizens to stop their subscriptions if we published the story. We received many other calls with similar threats. We published the story and years later we are good friends with the family and bank president. They were hurt and, of course, the newspaper was to blame. In this case, time healed the wounds.

“I think by our constant reporting of suicides the family and friends saw that we had a policy and we stuck to that policy to report ALL the news, good and bad.

“We have not reported many suicides lately; it may be because of the publicity and knowledge about suicides. You should stay with your original policy, because if you change it for one person you will never hear the end of it. It also damages your credibility. The public will not have as much confidence in your newspaper as it once did.”

Henry Overduin, head of the Department of Mass Communication at McNeese State University: “In general, cause of death should not be reported unless it is newsworthy in itself, such as accidental death, murder, a highly unusual disease, etc. Reporting cause of death should avoid doing harm, such as adding to family grief. ‘Died suddenly’ should cover most cases. (And what’s wrong with dropping the ‘suddenly’? Isn’t being dead like being pregnant? That’s probably not a good comparison, but you get the point.)

“Only when the dead person is a prominent public official or public figure can the cause of death be potentially newsworthy. The ethical duty of journalists here is to do no harm, and the greater good of the community is served by minimizing pain of those affected by bad news. Other arguments could be made based on good taste and invasion of privacy.

“Would anyone seriously think of reporting that ‘Joe Jones died of throat cancer, a disease medical authorities say is usually associated with heavy drinking and smoking?’ Or, ‘Jimmy Smith, 15, died of an overdose of heroin last night. Police said they did not know whether he overdosed accidentally or deliberately. No foul play is suspected.’

“Since we would not report such things, we ought not to report suicides either. Of course, there are always exceptions. But insensitivity or lack of care for community or people affected by the news should not be among them.”

Douglas Perret Starr, professor of journalism at Texas A&M University: “I agree with Brad’s standard argument that the newspaper reports for the community, not for those being reported on, and the community needs to know about this particular form of death, regardless of how distasteful it is, and that the newspaper is simply the messenger.

“Moreover, suicide is a crime whose outcome is the same as any homicide. It is self-murder and, as such, has no special privilege. True, not all murders, not all crimes, are reported. There are too many of them. Houston, for example, has 400 murders annually, so the Houston Chronicle reports only the more interesting murders. In small towns, where murders are not so plentiful, weekly and small daily newspapers do publish all of them.

“And, as you said, people want to know the details.

“When I was a young newsman for The Associated Press in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida, we reported ALL non-natural deaths: murder, accidents of all kinds, suicide, whatever. Remember the saying: Most people get their names in the paper three times — when they are born, whey they marry, and when they die.

“Now, however, I am beginning to change my mind. So many people are dying non-natural deaths that stories of deaths of all kinds could easily take up several pages of a newspaper. I think that the routine obit is sufficient for the great majority of deaths, regardless of the cause.”