Slashdot Mirror
A Suicide Goes Viral On the Internet
Hugh Pickens writes "Will Oremus reports that Fox News showed a grisly spectacle Friday afternoon during a live car chase when the suspect got out of his car, stumbled down a hillside, pulled a gun, and shot himself in the head. As the scene unfolded, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith grew increasingly apprehensive, then yelled 'get off it, get off it!,' belatedly urging the show's producers to stop the live feed as it became obvious the man was going to do something rash. Fox News cut awkwardly to a commercial just after showing his death and after Fox aired the on-air suicide, Smith apologized to viewers, saying, 'We really messed up.' However BuzzFeed immediately posted the footage on YouTube, where it garnered more than 1,000 'likes' in under an hour, sparking immediate blowback. 'Who's worse? @FoxNews for airing the suicide, or @BuzzFeed for re-posting the video just in case you missed it the first time?' posted the Columbia Journalism Review. Gawker's Hamilton Nolan called his site's decision to post the video 'ethical,' because 'it is news' but research suggests that graphic depictions of suicide in the media can spur copycat suicides, especially among young people, and the World Health Organization's guidelines warn against sensationalizing it. Virtually everyone who has studied it agrees that, at a minimum, suicides should be covered with a modicum of sensitivity and context (PDF). 'Of course it's news that Fox News accidentally aired the video. And you can make a good case that Fox was inviting this type of debacle with its habit of airing live car-chase feeds. But Fox couldn't have known that it was about to air a suicide. BuzzFeed, by contrast, knew exactly what it was doing,' writes Oremus. 'That might be good business for BuzzFeed, but it's hard to see the benefit for anyone else.'"
Of course they aired it because it was exciting, and statistically, suicides are rare.
On April 30, 1998, I decided to ditch the latter half of the school day with my girlfriend. On the news was the long, drawn-out suicide of Daniel Victor Jones [ WARNING: GRAPHIC! ] who was an AIDS patient protesting, on the Los Angeles' 710 freeway, teh lack of care he received through an HMO. The part that the video does not show is that he gets in his truck with his dog before he sets the truck on fire, then runs out of the flaming truck shutting the door behind him so that his dog dies in the inferno.
Then, he gets his shotgun and blows his head off. All of this was televised LIVE on the news, which caused the news networks to actually put counselors on the air after the incident, it was a huge shitstorm.
As for me, I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. My girlfriend said, "well, that fucker deserved it. Let's go get some KFC. " I told her, "you want to eat right after watching a grizzly live suicide?!" She said, "Yeah, why not? He deserved it, burning his dog like that. Let's go to KFC."
-- Ethanol-fueled
Yes, nobody who dies from suicide could possibly have ever contributed anything to the benefit of society.
Let's face it: suicide happens. You'll get far more suicides happening by not talking about it than you will by revealing the truth to people - even if a few copycat suicides in the immediate aftermath are inevitable. Hint: people don't just kill themselves because they've seen a death, but may simply have seen a method for doing something they wanted to do anyway.
This is true, but they've noticed correlations between different ways that suicide is discussed and the suicide rate following it. The suicide rate tends to go down if it is discussed in a way that includes urging people who are thinking about it to get help. However, when someone's glorified for their suicide and no one says to get help if you're thinking about it, suicide rates tend to go up. Of course, that's all just correlation, not causation, but it is interesting.
When a society is successful, it finally has the luxury of protecting its weakest members. You may have your cause and effect reversed.