Jaelea Skehan

Reach, Awareness and Uptake of Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide and Mental Illness: An Australian Perspective

In recent years there has been international interest in media portrayal of suicide and mental illness and the impact that reporting may have on community understanding, attitudes and behaviour. Many countries have developed guidelines and resources for media reporting to encourage responsible and sensitive coverage. However, there has been little international evaluation of the extent to which journalists have embraced and followed media guidelines. In Australia, the Mindframe Media and Mental Health Project has implemented a national dissemination strategy that supports media professionals in their understanding and use of the guidelines. This has been achieved by face-to-face briefings, further resource development, promotional activities and work with peak bodies to implement changes in codes of practice. This paper examines the effectiveness of an active dissemination strategy, highlighting both quantitative and qualitative evaluation data that indicates substantial reach, awareness of, support for and uptake of these resources by media professionals in Australia.

Suicide in the News: Informing Strategies to Improve the Reporting of Suicide

Suicide in the News: Informing Strategies to Improve the Reporting of Suicide Jane Pirkisa; R. Warwick Bloodb; Jaelea Skehanc; Andrew Darea a Centre for Health Policy, Programs and Economics, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, Australia b News Research Group, The University of Canberra, Australia c Mindframe National Media Initiative, Hunter Institute of Mental Health, Newcastle, Australia

Suicide bereavement and the media: A qualitative study

Abstract While there has been international interest in the reporting of suicide and the potential impact on community behaviour, research has yet to consider the specifi c impact of media reporting on those bereaved by suicide. Nor has the research considered the potential impact that reports focussed on suicide bereavement may have on community behaviour. The suicide bereavement literature has generally focussed on describing the unique experiences and needs of people bereaved by suicide, but specifi c considerations, such as interaction with the media, are generally absent from the discussion. In the present study a series of focus groups with people bereaved by suicide and key informant interviews with media professionals, postvention workers, police, coroners and people bereaved by suicide were conducted. Results show that there can be considerable variation in how people bereaved by suicide view media coverage and the reported impacts that exposure to, or involvement in, stories about suicide can have. It highlights a need to consider resources and service models to brief and support those bereaved by suicide when interacting with the media and expansion of current resources and training for journalists that considers the challenges of interacting with people who are bereaved.

The Response Ability Project: Integrating the Reporting of Suicide and Mental Illness into Journalism Curricula

The Response Ability Project is a collaboration between mental health professionals and journalism educators in Australia. It seeks to influence the pre-professional education of journalists so that graduates of university courses will be aware of, and are able to respond appropriately to, issues relating to suicide and mental illness. Importantly, the project situates this learning in the context of the core skills of journalism such as news writing, research, and interviewing. Multi-media resources were developed from pilot resources in 2001 and disseminated to Australian universities. This essay explores key achievements of the project, proposing a place for these issues in journalism curricula internationally.

Crafting safe and effective suicide prevention media messages: outcomes from a workshop in Australia

BackgroundSuicide and suicide-related behaviours are major public health concerns in Australia and worldwide. One universal intervention that has received an increased focus as a means of preventing suicide is the use of media campaigns. There is, however, a lack of understanding of the kinds of campaign messages that are safe and effective. The current paper aims to expand on this knowledge. The study objectives were to: (1) explore what suicide prevention experts consider to be essential characteristics of effective and safe suicide media campaigns; (2) develop suicide prevention media messages; and (3) explore the impact that these messages might have on different audiences.MethodsWe conducted a workshop in July 2015 which was attended by 21 experts (professionals with knowledge about suicide prevention and/or media campaigns, and people with a lived experience of suicide). The experts were split into three groups, and each group developed a suicide prevention message for one of the following target audiences: people at risk of suicide; family and peers of people at risk of suicide; and people bereaved by suicide.ResultsThe three groups generally agreed that these messages had to include two key characteristics: (1) validate or reflect the target group’s issues and needs; and (2) promote help-seeking behaviours. They noted, however, that messages that might have a positive impact for one target audience might inadvertently have a negative impact for other target audiences. In particular, they were concerned that messages designed for family and peers about being supportive and looking for warning signs might leave those who had been bereaved by suicide feeling isolated, guilty or traumatised. Workshop participants highlighted that gaps exist in relation to the use of appropriate language, were unsure of how to create destigmatising messages without normalising or sensationalising suicide and commented on the lack of evaluative evidence for the efficacy of media campaigns.ConclusionsDeveloping suicide prevention messages is complex and target and non-target audiences may interpret these messages differently to the way they were intended and the impact of such messaging may be detrimental. Caution needs to be applied when developing suicide prevention messages.