Suicide Legislation Killing Us Slowly with Enforced Silence

Summary

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IT is reassuring to discover that some organisation other than the Health Department it to look at the fraught issue of media reporting on suicide. The subject gas been the centre of heated debate for some years with the department taking the attitude that what is ignored will go away, coroners have tended to follow their own consciences and journalists and the families of the deceased have been caught in the middle, frustrated and gagged and frustrated.

Now Canterbury University researchers are probe the boundaries of such reporting. The university's head of mass communication and journalism Jim Tully has been given a $25,000 government grant to gauge media industry feeling on suicide reporting guidelines. He us likely to unearth a lot of dissatisfaction.

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Suicide Legislation Killing Us Slowly with Enforced Silence

Media coverage of suicide is tightly constrained by law. It is widely held by public health organ...

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