THERE needs to be responsible and ethical reporting of suicides, not just among media practitioners and content creators but the society at large, including social media users, says Communications and Multimedia Content Forum of Malaysia executive director Mediha Mahmood.
She is responding to news that numerous videos sensationalising suicide that has found its way onto news portals and social media platforms, which has sparked debates on ethical reporting.
“News reporting will always continue to offer what readers and viewers want. As consumers, we need to spread the awareness that such offensive reporting is not what we want, and we need to speak up against it,” she tells FocusM.
“We need to play a role in ensuring that news portals and content creators know that we do not condone the sensationalising of suicide.”
Consumers, according to Mediha, has more power than they realise. This is considering the fact that decades ago, news reporting around the world was filled with gender bias and sexist perspectives.
“More and more people started to call these news agencies out for it and today, there is positive change all around so much so that we rarely see reporting that’s sexist or discriminatory against women anymore.
“So do the same for everything that we see offensive, including irresponsible reporting of suicide cases. Stop sharing those posts. Write to the editors to protest offensive reporting,” she urged.
The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2017 media guidelines on suicide reporting indicates that media reports on suicide, particularly those which are sensationalist in nature and include excessive details on the nature and location of suicide cases, can spark ‘copycat’ suicides.
Despite the dangers, there are still content creators and social media page owners who still post suicide images or videos on their platforms. Worse, these content are shared thousands of times by other social media users.
Those who do this, according to Mediha, are either unaware that it is wrong to do so or are aware but simply do not care. After all, sensational news sells, and have the potential to draw more ‘eyeballs’ to their businesses.
“As consumers, we should ensure that they are aware of how their posts can negatively impact others, be it the victim’s family or the vulnerable groups in our community.
“When we see something (wrong), we should say or do something (to correct it). But do not share their offensive posts. Respond to them or send a private message to make them aware of what they are doing wrong. If that fails to result in them editing/taking down the offensive posts, then the next thing to do is to report them.
“All social media platforms have a reporting function, so make good use of this function. For other platforms like television or radio, any such offensive content can and should be reported to us at the Content Forum,” she concludes. – July 26, 2021
