Australian Press Council submission to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee on its Inquiry into Suicide in Australia.

November 2009

Introduction

The Australian Press Council is the independent self-regulatory body of the Australian print media. From time to time it has to deal with complaints about the reporting of suicide as an ethical issue that may breach its Statement of principles. As a body that seeks to preserve the traditional freedom of the press to report on matters of public interest and concern, it has also had to deal with calls for restrictions on the press' ability to report suicides or on the issues related to self-harm incidents.

It makes this brief submission to the committee to draw it attention to the generally responsible way in which the Australian press has reported suicide and the necessity of ensuring that the press is not unduly restricted in its ability to report on matters of public interest and concern.

Reporting of suicide

At the time of the establishment of the Press Council in 1976, the Australian press tended not to report suicide, whether the story related to a particular self-harm incident or to a coronial inquiry into such an incident. In order to avoid references to suicide, the press employed in such reports some circumlocutions that persist to this day, for example, "the police say that there were no suspicious circumstances". In its first fifteen years, the Council was called upon to adjudicate only two complaints arising from reports of self-harm incidents.

In the 1990s, in the wake of Aboriginal deaths in custody (often attributed to self-harm incidents) and to the increasing incidence of suicide, particularly of youth suicide, in Australia, there were calls for the greater reporting of suicide as a social phenomenon.

As a result of these developments, and a particular case where the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists brought a complaint to the Council about a report of a suicide published in The Age in 1994, the Council issued its first guideline on the reporting of suicide (Guideline 189, November 1994).

In 1996 the Council convened a meeting between mental health experts, community organisations and journalists and editors to discuss the issues arising from the increased reporting of suicide. This led to the publication of a transcript of that meeting and, indirectly, to the establishment by the government in 1997 of the National Media and Mental Health Group, which has developed further guidelines for the media on the reporting of mental health issues generally, and suicide in particular.

In July 2001, following consideration of further complaints, the Council updated its guideline on reporting of suicide and republished it as part of Guideline 246, and that guideline was appended for the Committee's guidance. It calls for responsible reporting of such matters, when they need to be reported at all, but notes that where there are legitimate issues of public interest and concern, responsible reporting of such matters is called for. These issues would include reports dealing with suicide prevention, preventable clusters of self-harm incidents, the activities of the community groups working in the area, the treatment of mental illness, the causes of depression, lack of government funding and so on.

Based on complaints with which it has dealt, the Council believes that the Australian print media has been responsible in its reporting of suicide since the release of Guideline 189. It can see no justification for any call to change the current situation with regard to the print media.

A causal link?

Based on its research, the Council does not subscribe to the hypothesis that the reporting of suicide, particularly youth suicide, is ipso facto bad and is itself a causal factor in subsequent suicides. The evidence appears to support the proposition that local contagion, through personal knowledge, is far more likely to lead to clusters, than the reporting of self-harm incidents in the general press. In fact, there are good reasons to assert that reporting can in fact have an ameliorative effect.

The Council notes some particular cases that seem to contradict the assertion that reporting of suicide-related matters is bad and to be avoided. The reporting in 1991-2 by the Brisbane Sunday Mail of the incidence of suicides from the Gateway Bridge led directly to steps being taken that reduced the use of that structure for suicide. In August 1992 the Sunday Herald Sun reported on an alarming cluster of suicides in Kyneton. The township became the centre of media attention and, as a result of the newspaper coverage, a public meeting was held to discuss the issue. Rather than leading to further suicides, the report seems to have had an ameliorative effect as demonstrated by a follow-up report in February 1994. A cluster of suicides in Bundanoon, a NSW provincial town, seemed to be linked by the common friendship among a group of men of various ages. The reporting in of these incidents (24 September and 27 September 1997) appears to have ended the cycle of suicide in Bundanoon. The press reporting of a suicide cluster in Geelong this year appears also to have led to action that has improved the situation in that regional city.

Mental health experts agree that appropriate reporting can lead to improved "mental health literacy" and to the promotion of mental health services. A 1990s recent Federal government report called for greater, not less, reporting of suicide-related stories. The assertions made by Dr Brendan Nelson, the chair of the reporting group, were that youth health and education services need to be more aware of the suicide problem and, implicitly, that such issues need to be aired publicly.

Conclusion

In the Press Council's view, the current self-regulatory guidelines are sufficient to govern the responsible reporting of suicide in the press and the Senate committee does not need to take any steps to further restrict the ability of the press to report on matters of public interest and concern.

See also
Guideline 246 on suicide reporting

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