Quality of media reporting following a celebrity suicide in India

• Published in: Journal of public health (Oxford, England) Vol. 44; no. 1; pp. e133 - e140
• Main Authors: Menon, Vikas, Kar, Sujita Kumar, Varadharajan, Natarajan, Kaliamoorthy, Charanya, Pattnaik, Jigyansa Ipsita, Sharma, Ginni, Mukherjee, Srijeeta, Shirahatti, Nikhilesh B, Ransing, Ramdas, Padhy, Susanta Kumar, Arafat, S M Yasir
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Oxford University Press 07.03.2022
• Subjects: Famous Persons; Humans; India - epidemiology; Mass Media; Suicide; World Health Organization; India; suicide and media; WHO guidelines; content analysis; media reporting; celebrity suicide; India
• ISSN: 1741-3842; 1741-3850
• DOI: 10.1093/pubmed/fdaa161

Abstract Background Celebrity suicides have the potential to trigger suicide contagion, particularly when media reporting is detailed and imbalanced. We aimed to assess the quality of media reporting of suicide of a popular Indian entertainment celebrity against the World Health Organization (WHO) suicide reporting guidelines. Methods Relevant news articles that reported the actor’s suicide were retrieved from online news portals of regional and English language newspapers and television channels in the immediate week following the event. Deductive content analysis of these articles was done using a pre-designed data extraction form. Results A total of 573 news articles were analyzed. Several breaches of reporting were noted in relation to mentioning the word ‘celebrity’ in the title of report (14.7%), inclusion of the deceased’s photograph (88.5%), detailed descriptions of the method (50.4%) and location of suicide (70.6%); local language newspapers were more culpable than English newspapers. Helpful reporting characteristics such as mentioning warning signs (4.1%), including educational information (2.7%) and suicide support line details (14.0%) were rarely practiced. Conclusion Media reporting of celebrity suicide in India is imbalanced and poorly adherent to suicide reporting recommendations. Local language news reports display more frequent and serious violations in reporting as opposed to English news articles.