(Warning: this post discusses suicide and self-harm. It also discusses poor reporting of these issues, and the danger of 'copycat' incidents.)
(For helplines, see details at the bottom of this post.)
There's been a lot of buzz in the UK over the last week or two over the prevalence of self-harm imagery on the Internet, and its link to suicide.
Now, there's def. issues with that, but there's also more issues than you'd think with the actual god-damned reporting of this issue.
The UK's leading suicide prevention charity, The Samaritans, provides Media Guidelines [PDF] for reporting on suicide.
These guidelines contain advice based on academic research on the affects of different types of news coverage.
I check them
whenever I'm talking about this issue, and when I make a conscious decision to bend them, as I did
when talking about the death of Chester Bennington, I'm very clear about my reasons for this, and
exceptionally careful with every single word I use.