Research shows that heavy reporting on a prominent person's suicide can increase suicide rates by as much as 14 percent, academics said yesterday.
Professor Chang Chin-hua (
She cited an example from Hong Kong. In November 1998, the media graphically related how a woman had killed herself. The method she used became one of the top three types of suicide in Hong Kong.
A study in Vienna also showed a sharp rise in suicides after extensive reporting on earlier suicides. The media launched a self-restraint campaign, cutting graphic and sensational descriptions of suicide, and after six months the city's suicide rate dropped by 8 percent.
Presidential adviser Chai Sung-lin (柴松林) said that in 1962, Marilyn Monroe's death drove the US' suicide rate up 12 percent, while the suicide of Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung (張國榮) pushed Hong Kong's suicide rate up 18 percent.
Chai cited 293 studies conducted between 1974 and 1996 from around the world that showed suicide by a public figure increased general suicide rates by an average of 14.3 percent.
Chang urged the media to follow the seven proposals developed by the World Health Organization in reporting on suicides.
She also advised the media against continuing its "Taiwan style" of reporting suicides, namely "conveying messages of the deceased from the beyond" during seance sessions. She said this benefited neither the dead nor the living, and only caused unrest.
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