Are journalists failing to curb the ‘suicide contagion’ effect?
Media reports of the death of Robin Williams linked to 104 'excess' suicides
Media guidelines on the reporting of suicide appear to be failing to prevent the contagion effect of celebrity suicide deaths.
Mainstream news outlets in Australia were judged, in the vast majority of cases, to be following guidelines on the safe reporting of suicide following the death of US comedian Robin Williams in August 2014.
Despite this, researchers found an extra 104 suicides took place in the five months after his death. It amounted to an 11% increase when compared with expectations.
These ‘excess’ suicides included 93 male deaths, 77 deaths using the same method Williams adopted and largely involved men aged 30-64.
