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A Winter Afternoon (4)

The ethical issue of reporting suicide cases have always been an argumentative topic around the world. Unlike the law, the ethics of journalism have been characterised as a grey area. Although there are regulations or guidelines on reporting death cases in different countries to ensure the incident was being reported were credible and professional, individuals have various ways to interpret the same issue and made different decisions on choosing the angle to report the incident. However, with the rapid development of Internet and online media outlets, the way to report suicide have again became an ethical dilemma for the media. According to Nip, Internet is shifting the industry to a two-way participatory journalism as the process of news production via public participation in both news gathering and the distribution process. We are in an era that everyone with a phone can be a “citizen journalist” to report interesting facts on the social media platforms and share with the public. The society has raised a huge concern towards the authenticity of information, the impact of social media and the problem of lack of regulations of online news reporting, especially on reporting death cases.

7 deaths in 9 days, who to blame?

In the academic year of 2015/2016, there were total 31 students from different education levels and backgrounds committed suicide due to the high pressure of studying in Hong Kong. Strong and negative statements have been used in the online reports of the incident. Big and sensationalistic headlines such as “You are not alone, the society is with you” and the details of the suicide were depicted. Online media have quoted some relatively non-controversial comments and tried to connect the incident with the bad government policies. Internet users have been incited and started to accuse that it was the education system in Hong Kong that pushed the youngsters to the edge without offering any actual help and shown sympathy to the students. Death number have raised dramatically after the incidents were reported by the new media and somehow triggered the string of suicides among students.

Practical issue of new media reporting death

When string of suicides occurred among a group it should be considered as a social but not just a personal issue. The majority of journalists are well aware that it is their responsibilities to explore the reasons behind the terrible patterns of death with professional attitude. However, ethical reporting requires approaching the deceased’s relatives to check the accuracy of details, seek for consent from the family for the publication of the materials to build up rapport and trust, which nowadays have been considered as a time consuming process when information spread fast online. In fact journalists are now trying to quote “less intrusive information” from the deceased’s social media and build up their stories based on these comments that were lack of credibility in recent years. It’s pretty much like the virtual version of taking comments from cards and flowers at the scene.

Ethical and legal concerns of reporting suicide over the Internet

There is an ongoing concern about the online suicide reports might incite people to commit suicide by providing too much detailed information on suicide methods and unnecessary sensation in the depiction.

Now, apparently the mainstream mass media were pretty aware of reporting in a such sensationalistic way is restricted by the ethics code of journalism. Yet in the contemporary reporting practices, professional and amateurs are able to share questions facts and perspectives to produce stories in real time, which professionals will have limited time to check the authenticity of the information that they received on the internet.

There are no regulations or guidance that is available for them on reporting death online responsibly and often result in inciting the public during the process of news productions. According to BBC News, the social media might be responsible for causing the imitation phenomenon of student suicide since that the online media outlets have been categorising the reason of suicide roughly and quoting emotional comments from the deceased’s social media might give negative impacts to those who have a weaker mentation that might result in clustering and contagion of suicide. “Networked journalism” is not something new to us yet the influence of it have always be underestimated especially when printed media are embracing online reporting in recent years. They share the same identity and influences online and offline yet the regulation and limitations on reporting sensitive topics are different. However, the parliament of Australia have stated that it is hard to regulate online reporting since that the internet itself is lack of centralised control. Journalists media outlets are required to stay effective self-regulated and have strong ethical perspective on online reporting since that the social media is even more influential in the contemporary society.

Although news is only useful in the context of humanity, putting too much personal opinions and linking the tragedy to the existing society problems is an irresponsible act that against the ethics of being a journalist.