Newspaper reporting of suicide:compliance with WHO media guidelines

ObjectiveTo assess whether the newspaper reports of suicide in Guangdong province comply with standard reporting guidelines of World Health Organization(WHO)for promoting standard reporting of suicide in mass media.MethodsA total of 453 newspaper reports of suicide from 5 kinds of newspapers in 2011 were systematically assessed for compliance with the WHO media guidelines.Content analysis was conducted to evaluate each report on 5 domains and 27 parameters.ResultsThe results found that some media characteristics complied with the WHO media guidelines.Of all the reports studied,99.1% expressed the result of suicide exactly;99.6% referred to the suicide as a completed suicide but not a successful one;only one report attributed religious reason to the suicide.But there were a number of instances of non-compliance.For all the reports,11.3% were on the front page and 59.4% reported the suicide in a prominent way.Celebrity suicides were more often reported on front page and in a prominent way than others.There were 37.4% of the reports reporting with photos or images,68.7% reporting suicide method in detail,96.7% reporting suicide location,52.1% reporting mono-causality,6.2% reporting risk indicators, and 11.9% reporting mental disorder related to suicide,respectively.In addition,less than 4% of the reports included information on suicide prevention and helplines and 52.1% reported the suicide in a simplistic way.ConclusionThe majority of reports on suicides in newspapers in Guangzhou city did not comply with WHO standard guidelines of reporting.There is a strong need to evolve local guidelines and mechanisms for ensuring responsible reporting which has important implication in prevention of suicide.