Reporting Suicide in the Media

The potential impact of the media on suicide rates has been known for a long time.  There is significant evidence from around the world to indicate that highly sensationalised reporting of suicides providing detailed descriptions of method can and does lead to 'copy-cat' suicides.

The media has an important role to play in educating the public about suicide. With this comes an enormous responsibility to deal with the issue in a sensitive and thoughtful way. To reflect this, Choose Life has prepared these simple guidelines to help you.

Choose Life has been working collaboratively with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Scotland and the National Programme for Improving Mental Health & Well-Being to develop a practical guide for journalists on the reporting of mental health and suicide by the media. This has been developed by the media for the media and the most recent version can be downloaded here.

Samaritans have also developed their own media guidelines which can be downloaded here.

For reports, training material and other information about the link between the media and suicide, please click here.