Suicidal Thoughts With The Daily Sport

ANYONE know what percentage of suicides read the Daily Sport? And for another study, does reading the Daily Sport encourage feelings of suicide or are you already suicidal when you buy it?

And for a few pence more, why not just buy the Daily Mail and learn that things can be much worse and usually are.

Much to debate, then, in light of the Press Complaints Commission’s decision to censure the Daily Sport for a “gratuitous article that glamorised suicide” after the tabloid published a “Top yourself tourism” list.

The Daily Sport’s list of the UK’s “top 10 suicide hotspots” used information released by the British transport police that showed 25 people had died on one stretch of railway line over three years. Why they had chosen that piece of line is unsaid, nor do we learn if in light of the Sport’s piece, incidences had risen.

But something called Choose Life was upset. Choose Life is a government-backed education project “working to reduce the numbers of suicides in Scotland”. It complained to the PCC that the piece “had provided unnecessary detail which might encourage vulnerable people to visit the places shown and take their own lives” and said the piece was “highly irresponsible”.

It might.

The PCC said the article “was simply a gratuitous guide to how and where individuals have killed themselves. It treated a serious subject in a light-hearted manner and may have glamorised suicide in the eyes of some readers.”

Only once before has the PCC first upheld a complaint over the revised code of practice. In May 2007 the Wigan Advertiser published “excessive detail” when reporting the death of a teacher who had electrocuted herself.

Following this ruling, Choose Life said:

“We believe all media have a duty to report suicide sensitively and responsibly and would urge editors to take careful note of this adjudication to guide future reporting of suicide in their newspapers.”

Indeed. But why single out the Sport when so many nationals are guilty of creating hysteria over suicides in Bridgend?

The Mirror gave space and time for a local to tell us:

“Every morning, you’re waking up thinking, Who’s it gonna be today? It’s got really freaky. There’s a sense that the place is cursed, a losing town’s curse.”

The Mail went one better and in “The tragedy of Jenna, suicide town’s 17th victim”, it blamed the actual place for the death cult, or curse. Death by Bridgend.

The Sport is crass, for certain. One Anorak writer was nicknamed ‘The Professor’ while working for the paper on account of his having an A-level.

But what of the other papers. Why not them..?

Anorak

Posted: 17th, September 2008 | In: Media Bitch, Tabloids Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink