How Should Celebrity Suicides Be Handled by the Media?

Covering suicide with too much detail can have a negative impact on consumers.

            People feel a certain connection to celebrities. Much of this is likely from media coverage; getting little glimpses of the lives of celebrities makes people feel like they know them. This can be good or bad depending on the circumstances. For example, when a pair gets married or someone has a baby, it can be a cause for joy for many consumers. However, there are certain times when this level of coverage may be harmful to readers.

One area this can be damaging is when a celebrity commits suicide. The death of a celebrity is always widely covered, but this type of death perhaps particularly so. Such coverage can have widespread effects.

People who are already at-risk for suicide may be put in more danger. People who are suffering from mental health issues- diagnosed or not- may be more likely to commit suicide after seeing someone else they admire do it. This is made worse when the story ends up on headlines or as breaking news on multiple news outlets. It is so prominent at this point that it is unavoidable. After the suicide of Robin  Williams, for example, suicide rates in the United States jumped nearly 10%.

Statistics found on https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

This brings up the question of how this type of issue should be covered. It would be impossible to not cover the death of celebrities, and that would not be a good solution anyway.

One option for this would be to cover that the celebrity died, but just keep this as the headline. If the topic of suicide should be broached, it should be in the body of the work rather than being so front-and-center on the page.

Something else that might help is minimizing the detail of the death in the story. It is important to cover how it happened, and with the internet so readily available, it would be impossible to hide it completely. However, while the suicide should be covered, it may not be relevant to cover exactly how it happened. Such coverage may be seen as disrespectful by the family or could even inspire more vulnerable people to do the same.

Suicide is not something that should just be glanced over or something that people should be It is something that should be treated with respect, for the victim, for the family of the deceased, and for the people who were inspired by them.
made to feel bad about. This would just lead to even more people failing to get the help they need in order to better their lives. This does not mean it needs to always be up-front and in-your-face.

These may not be solutions that would help right away, as there would always be those who wanted to sensationalize the death. However, every little bit can help and everyone should strive to protect those who may not be in a position to help themselves.