Media

Media Recommendations

Media and online coverage of suicide should be informed by using best practices. Some suicide deaths may be newsworthy. However, the way media cover suicide can influence behavior negatively by contributing to contagion or positively by encouraging help-seeking.

Responsible Media Coverage Saves Lives

Media and online coverage of suicide should be informed by using best practices. Some suicide deaths may be newsworthy; however, the way media covers suicide can influence behavior negatively by contributing to contagion or positively by encouraging help-seeking. Suicide Contagion or “Copycat Suicide” occurs when one or more suicides are reported in a way that contributes to another suicide.

Fortunately, reporting on suicide can be accomplished in ways that serve both the truth about the complexities of suicide and the health of the general public. There are steps the media can take to minimize the possibility that its coverage of suicide will contribute to additional suicides. There are also steps the media can take to proactively contribute to raising suicide awareness and preventing suicide.

The following recommendations were developed by leading experts in suicide prevention and in collaboration with several international suicide prevention and public health organizations, schools of journalism, media organizations, key journalists and Internet safety experts. The recommendations are based on more than 50 international studies on suicide contagion.