Hong Kong, a major city in China has been reporting on suicides as if suicide is a daily occurrence. You can look at a newspaper and see a suicide story on the front cover and while watching the news they give a in-depth look into what "really" happened.
According to South China Morning Post, media reports could have an impact on the suicide rate. Suicide is a difficult topic to report on because no one but the individual knows what actually happened. Journalist know some of the facts but do not know everything.
Fu King-wa stated “Reporting on suicide should be based on fact not imagination. The mass media have a habit of filling in many of the ‘unknowns’ in suicide stories themselves,” The story shouldn't be how they committed suicide because that not educating anyone to not commit suicide.
Newspaper in Hong Kong for some reason seem to always report on suicide. They also make these stories front page news!
A Hong Kong tabloid magazine reported on a women who committed suicide by inhaling helium. To make matters worse they developed an video animation to show how she killed herself. This is letting people "how to" commit suicide, not how to prevent it.
What is even more shocking is that these articles do not offer support for anyone considering suicide. There is no help line number offered or tips to bettering your life. All these newspapers are doing is promoting suicide.They also seem to be reporting on suicide cases that involve individuals 25 and under. Very rarely do you see a story about someone 60 and over.
Tracey Dedman of The Samaritans has found that Hong Kong has been misusing words while reporting on suicide. Such words are; successful and unsuccessful suicides. These words make suicides seem like something people are good or bad at. The Samaritan published their own set of guidelines when reporting about suicides.
According to Alastair Sharp of the South China Morning Post; "Hong Kong held its first "Suicide Survivors Day" conference last month, sponsored by the Samaritans, as part of a series of events in more than 20 countries." Why would they need have a day for the survivors of people who committed suicide if the suicide rate decrease. With that, the media has to rethink their strategy when reporting about suicides.