Clinicians and researchers acknowledge that it is not news coverage of suicide per se, but certain types of news coverage, that promote contagion. Persons concerned with preventing suicide contagion should be aware that certain characteristics of news coverage, rather than news coverage itself, should be avoided. Health professionals or other public officials should not try to tell reporters what to report or how to write the news regarding suicide. If the nature and apparent mechanisms of suicide contagion are understood, the news media are more likely to present the news in a manner that minimizes the likelihood of such contagion. Public officials and the news media should carefully consider what is to be said and reported regarding suicide.
Reporters generally present the information that they are given.
Impromptu comments about a suicide by a public official can result in harmful news coverage. Given the potential risks, public officials and the media should seek to minimize these risks by carefully considering what is to be said and reported regarding suicide. Public officials and the media should carefully explain that the final precipitating event was not the only cause of a given suicide. Most persons who have committed suicide have had a history of problems that may not have been acknowledged during the acute aftermath of the suicide. Cataloguing the problems that could have played a causative role in a suicide is not necessary, but acknowledgment of these problems is recommended.