Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
email topstorylive % at # gmail + dot = com

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Depression and suicide, and reportage thereof

The Herald News - News - 10/11/2005 - Help for depression:

If an airplane carrying 86 people crashed every day and killed all those aboard, it would make national, even international, news. Fingers would be pointed. A public outcry for answers would ensue.

Yet, this is how many people die in the United States every day from suicide, according to the state Department of Public Health. About 11 of those suicides are among young people age 15 to 24, making it the third leading cause of death in that age group, behind accidents and homicide.

Here is a story about suicide -- albeit preventing it, but suicide nonetheless -- and it's in the newspaper.

Since I noticed this story, Charles Rocket, né(e) Charles Claverie, has been well-reported in the news as having died -- or rather, as having killed himself, by slitting his own throat. He was a film and TV actor, RISD graduate, Providence television reporter and anchor (with the on-air name Charles Kennedy) and later went to Saturday Night Live, where he anchored "Weekend Update."

Now, he's not the first person to commit suicide and get in the newspaper for it. He's just a handy example.

The point I'm working very slowly toward is: in the television and radio news business, we do not report the suicides of "nobodies." .....unless they kill somebody else in the process. Maybe they report the occasional self-offing in the newspaper. I don't know.

Once I got a woman who called to find out if there was any news about a guy who jumped out one of the windows at Foxwoods to his death. I believe I told her that we didn't cover suicides. So, it's probably something the public doesn't really think about that much.

Suicide is very much looked down upon, and I guess not just in this country -- perhaps someone made the joke once about how the rest of us still left here on earth are all secretly jealous of the guy who got off easy. I guess the thinking is, don't put a guy on television, don't give him notoriety, or fame, or legitimacy, only because he killed himself in a mildly interesting way; a) it would be glamorizing suicide which is a nasty thing, and b) it would probably be pretty nasty to talk about it when his family's all torn up about it, and c) it might give people ideas of going out with a bang.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 10/19/2005 01:16:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
...
..........