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Media recommendations on reporting suicidal behaviour and suggestions for optimisation

Portrayal of suicidal behaviour in the media carries the risk of imitation (suicide contagion, copycat suicide, Werther effect; 1–3). Considerate reporting, in contrast, might decrease suicide and suicide attempt rates (4). Recommendations for media professionals have been introduced in many countries to promote responsible reporting of suicidal behaviour, and to balance the public’s ‘right to know’ against the risk of causing harm. These recommendations, prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO; 5) and (non-) governmental suicide prevention organisations, give detailed proposals on the portrayal of suicidal behaviour. Press codes of ethics, developed by media councils, aim to generally ensure ethical reporting and to hold editors and journalists accountable for their actions. Responsible reporting of suicide events might be among the mentioned criteria for professional journalistic behaviour. To our knowledge, systematic analyses of the existence of media recommendations (also in the context of national suicide prevention programmes), of press codes including a paragraph on portraying suicide, and the included aspects of reporting are not yet available. A survey to systematically assess the contents of media recommendations and press codes of ethics was conducted within the optimizing suicide prevention programmes and their implementation in Europe (OSPI-Europe) project, which aims to establish a best practice and evidence-based approach to reduce suicidal behaviour by community-based multilevel interventions (6, 7). For 74 (38%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations (UN), information on the existence or non-existence of national suicide prevention programmes was found via online search engines and/or a survey among the representatives of the International Association for Suicide Prevention. Of these 74 countries, only 38% have national suicide prevention programmes, 38% media recommendations and 25% press codes of ethics mentioning suicide reporting. A combination of national suicide prevention programmes, media recommendations in the national language, and a section on reporting suicide in the press codes is found in 11% of 74 countries only. All 34 media recommendations advise against describing suicide methods in detail. Most of them (>75%) warn against simplistic explanations and glorification of suicide, and recommend to refer to help in general, to report nonsensationally, and not to use photos. More than half of the recommendations suggest to list warning signs, to link suicide to mental illness and to refer to help agencies. A systematic assessment of media recommendations and press codes of ethics revealed some deficiencies in format, content, up-to-dateness, accessibility and availability, and thus a need for optimisation.