Here's an article that I think brings up some very valid points on both sides of the aisle in a debate regarding whether suicides and/or attempts should get much, if any, press coverage. The core of the discussions focus on whether reporting on it leads others to consider taking their own lives. It brings up a question for me that I think is important in efforts to find MPs. As we see day in and day out around here, there are umpteen thousand MP and UID cases that have no profile in LE databases. In many cases the news report is the only report that is ever given. If MSM doesn't cover GGB suicides, wouldn't it become even more difficult than it is now to find MPs and/or match MPs with their remains? Also, this issue ties right in with
@ChatteringBirds point about the potential for staged scenes. I'm kind of conflicted on which side I'd choose if I had to pick.
I just wish there were more effective ways (before they get on the bridge) of reaching out to people who are contemplating suicide.
Publicizing a magnet for suicide / What if writing about it strengthens the lure?
SBBM
The siren song of the
Golden Gate Bridge has long been seductive to artists, photographers, writers and yes, also to suicidal leapers, of which there have been approximately 1,300 since the bridge opened in 1937. The fascination with the bridge's role as the world's strongest suicide magnet is understandable,
but what if publicity only strengthens its deadly lure?
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But what if reopening the barrier debate only gives more people ideas?
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Publicizing suicides may indeed encourage them.
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Authors of the ethics guidelines point to a raft of research studies showing that the more intense and dramatic the newspaper and television coverage of suicide, the more deaths are likely.
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What should newspapers do?
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Too much of the wrong kind of attention to suicide will not help the cause of suicide prevention.
But there are also costs of silence.
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Nowadays, to get your name in The Chronicle for jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, you need to be already famous or take someone with you, or at least tie up traffic for a while.