By Wan Norshira Binti Wan Mohd Ghazali
KUALA LUMPUR, 15 November 2019: “Suicidal crisis is a national problem that is contagious, hence, the media need to be sensitive and responsible in reporting such cases,” Ahmad Izham Omar of Communications and Multimedia Content Forum (CMCF), told the audience of the Forum on “Media Responsibility for Suicide Reporting” yesterday.
Organised by Communications and Multimedia Content Forum (CMCF), the two-hour forum had invited three speakers namely a psychiatrist from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (PPUKM), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chan Lai Fong, a trainee psychiatrist from Ministry of Health (MOH), Dr. Ravivarma Rao Panirselvam, and Executive Director of The Befrienders Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Kenny Lim, to deliberate and explore issues pertaining to, and ways on becoming responsible media in reporting suicide cases.
“Suicide is the second disease and the leading social issue in Malaysia,” shared Ahmad Izham with members of the audience comprised media practitioners, Ministry’s and government officers, academicians and students.
Ahmad Izham added that the media need to adhere to ethical guidelines in reporting suicidal cases by avoiding explicit and descriptive reports and preserving the sensitivity of family members of suicide victims.
In agreement to this, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chan Lai Fong deliberated that the media should be mindful before detailing out causes of a death or types of drugs taken in suicide cases. She presented research findings to explore the possible effects of explicit news reporting and media products on suicidal crises.
She recalled Robin William’s suicide case that was reported irresponsibly through the narration and description of how and what led to his suicide. She emphasised that such reporting will facilitate the increase of suicidal thoughts among readers who were going through the same situations.
“A study found that, following the suicide of actor Robin Williams, the number of suicide cases in the same vicinity had increased drastically in that year,” she said.
This, according to Dr. Chan, was an implication of not adhering to media guidelines. Dr. Chan further illustrated a phenomenon termed the Werther effect.
The term was based on a novel titled “The Sorrow of Young Werther” which portrayed the protagonist Werther committing suicide in the name of love. The book was said to have caused about 40 people taking their lives using the same way as Werther. This pattern was said to be consistent until present times that supported the view of suicide contagion.
Although Chan admitted lack of adherence to suicide reporting guidelines among media practitioners, she observed that this has improved over time.
Having said that, Chan explained, “The media are potential to play protective roles by highlighting stories of people who have successfully overcome suicidal crises. Known as Papageno effect, the theory suggests that by telling or reporting stories related to this, readers will perceive that recovery from suicidal crises is also possible.
The forum speakers conjointly agreed that the use of guidelines for media reporting on suicide cases should be made known not only to media practitioners, but also to academicians, students, social media users and the public as a whole. Quoting Ahmad Izham, “The guidelines were published to ensure good reporting conduct.”
Dr. Ravivarma Rao Panirselvam from Ministry of Health added, “The key messages and the call aim of the guidelines are to eventually provide accurate and sensitive reporting on suicide matters and it generally contains the do’s and the don’ts’. Since most of the time, the rules can be subjective we need to conduct self-regulation in order to materialise responsible and sensitive reporting.”
There were 68 organisations involved, among others, Media Specialist Association (MSA), Malaysian Advertisers Association (MAA), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), and Star Media Group Berhad, to put things together into guidelines led by CMCF.
CMCF was established in 2001 under a clause in the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA ’18) to govern content and address content related issues. As a self-regulatory body, CMCF is responsible to govern contents by self-regulation in line with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Content Code which was officially registered.***
Datuk Ahmad Izham Omar
