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Abstract
Military suicide has increased over the past decade and reports of Service Member and Veteran suicides receive media attention. Some methods of reporting suicide appear to cause a “media contagion” effect, potentially increasing suicide. This effect is explored in relation to media reports of both military and civilian suicides. To reduce possible contagion, recommendations for media reporting of suicides were adapted by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). We assessed 240 military and civilian newspaper reports of suicide from 15 different sources for compliance with the SPRC guidelines. Nearly all reviewed articles violated at least one guideline. Results highlighted military news articles regarding Service Members included more pejorative language and discussion of failed psychological treatment. Conversely, civilian articles romanticized the victim and provided more details regarding the suicide. Further exploration of military suicide reporting bias is discussed as a need in future research.
Notes
1Although all the recommendations were formulated using evidence-based literature, only those starred (*) have specifically been evidenced to increase incidence of suicide.
*Item Kappa indicates only moderate agreement (Landis & Koch, Citation1977).
**f of non-compliance refers to the frequency of non-compliance accordance to SPRC guidelines.
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The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.