Reporting over Miura Haruma's suicide criticized

[takenoko]

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... fe/025000c

Thought this article was interesting to read. Japan is kind of famous for it's ridiculous number of suicides. I wonder if the lack of care when reporting them might accidentally be romanticizing the act, leading to copycat suicides.

It's a troubling aspect about suicide that depending on how the media reports celebrity suicides, it can actually cause a rise in suicides to occur.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/new-fr ... e-paradox/

In a culture where consideration is such a highly valued virtue, it's surprising that this isn't something that is taken into consideration. Although it's probably pretty hard to control the flow of information, where anyone on Youtube could be a "news source"

[Catastrophe]

New Zealand has a criminal law that prevents the media from reporting or discussing suicides. They can still report the death and say 'Found unresponsive at home', but can't mention the cause of death or how they did it.

This extends to some other media as well, such as books and movies that discuss it (but not fictitious portrayals of it).

[takenoko]

Yeah, I was surprised by how much there was to it. I had a general idea of stuff like that from the Freakonomics podcast, but I didn't know that they weren't supposed to describe the details or even what the location was like

[Catastrophe]

I think it's to also try and crackdown on the tabloidy nature of the reporting of it.

My personal feeling is that the TMZs of the world love to run these speculative pieces as to why public figures commit suicide in order to get more clicks rather than show respect. All death is tragic, but to me there is something extra sad about someone thinking they don't have a way out of whats tormenting them other than to take their own life.

[decade368990]

Not just Japan. Even Korea is famous for suicide. Many actors and actresses as well as production staff suicide because how dark it is to survive in the entertainment circle.

[takenoko]

Yeah, that's a shame that irresponsible reporting and making money come first in priority over the well being of their readers

[Catastrophe]

Modern journalism is pretty cancerous. I can't stand clickbait and low effort articles.

[Mandalori]

That's how it is everywhere I think because of how they got paid. Probably being paid by the number of articles they make rather than the quality of the research because it's easier to quantify. Our whole society need to change, but there are only a few of us who are ready to change their whole way of life because change is hard and you don't know if it's going to be better or worse. That and the fact that those who decide really don't want things to change because it's more beneficial to them that way. In the end, we're all slaves of a system we didn't make.