Our society needs to talk more openly about suicide. However, public discussion of suicide carries risks, and it’s crucial that such discussion be informed, sensitive and alert to potential harm.
Media reporting often unfairly stigmatises people with mental illness and promotes the stereotype that mental illness causes violent behaviour. New guidelines offer tips for more responsible reporting.
The freedom of the press is important, and of course it must be protected. But the freedom of everybody else and of ordinary citizens is also important.
To survive in 19th-century newsrooms, reporters would have to hustle to get by, even if it meant producing fakes, staging events and sharing work with reporters from competing newspapers.
Risk has to do with uncertainty; people struggle to conceptualise and manage that which they’re unsure about. This is true in the higher education sector, too.
With an explosion of media outlets that don’t adhere to mainstream journalistic standards, it’s became difficult for readers to know whether to trust reports based on unnamed sources and leaks.
People who read false news items come to believe them – even if they know better. It doesn’t help to know the source is unreliable or the report has been debunked.
Violence against women is a national priority, and Aboriginal women are disproportionately affected. This must be reported on appropriately in the media.