Man Commits Suicide. Oops, Critic Broke the Law

New media reporting guidelines released last year by the Chief Coroner have been called into question by University of Otago Professor David Fergusson and Auckland's Dr. Annette Beautrais in an editorial published in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Prof. Fergusson and Dr. Beautrais say that the new guidelines will set New Zealand on a path which “deviates from international best practice” by loosening the restrictions placed on reporting suicide. They say that the more open approach set out in these guidelines is known to increase suicide risk through “copycat” suicides.

The editorial claims that “the risky practice proposed in the new resource has been reinforced by the claims made by the Chief Coroner and his colleagues that greater media publicity about suicide will have beneficial effects. In turn, their advocacy has led to an increase in prominent stories about suicide.” Speaking to Critic, Fergusson urged media to “take a cautious and muted approach to this topic” and only report on positive “mastery of crisis” stories.

Fergusson claims that at the time the original 1990 guidelines were produced, Ministry of Health officials were strongly advised that it was important to enlist the support of the media before promulgating the guidelines. It was suggested that the best way of doing this was organising a meeting which brought all parties (media representatives, research workers, and Ministry officials) together to develop a consensus.

“This advice was not followed and the media guidelines were imposed on the New Zealand media with minimal consultation . The consequence of this was bickering by media spokesmen about the validity and worth of the guidelines.”

“This process culminated in the Minister responsible for suicide prevention, Peter Dunne, convening a round table meeting in 2011. This included limited research support and was over-weighted by media representatives [which] resulted in a watered-down version of the guidelines.”
This article first appeared in Issue 26, 2012.
Posted 5:01pm Sunday 30th September 2012 by Zane Pocock.