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Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India

Background: Each year there are more than 800,000 deaths by suicide across the world, while India alone accounts for one third of female suicides and one fourth of male suicides worldwide. Responsible media reporting of suicide is an important suicide prevention intervention at the population level....

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Autores principales: Vijayakumar, Lakshmi, Shastri, Manisha, Fernandes, Tanya Nicole, Bagra, Yash, Pathare, Aaryaman, Patel, Arpita, Jain, Padam, Merchant, Yesha, Armstrong, Gregory, Pathare, Soumitra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8230035/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34201213
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126206
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author Vijayakumar, Lakshmi
Shastri, Manisha
Fernandes, Tanya Nicole
Bagra, Yash
Pathare, Aaryaman
Patel, Arpita
Jain, Padam
Merchant, Yesha
Armstrong, Gregory
Pathare, Soumitra
author_facet Vijayakumar, Lakshmi
Shastri, Manisha
Fernandes, Tanya Nicole
Bagra, Yash
Pathare, Aaryaman
Patel, Arpita
Jain, Padam
Merchant, Yesha
Armstrong, Gregory
Pathare, Soumitra
author_sort Vijayakumar, Lakshmi
collection PubMed
description Background: Each year there are more than 800,000 deaths by suicide across the world, while India alone accounts for one third of female suicides and one fourth of male suicides worldwide. Responsible media reporting of suicide is an important suicide prevention intervention at the population level. There is sufficient evidence to show that the way suicide is reported and portrayed in the media can have a significant impact on individuals experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Recognizing the important role of the media in suicide prevention, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued guidelines for responsible reporting of suicides by the media. The Press Council of India, in 2019 endorsed WHO’s guidelines for media reporting of suicides, however there is no evidence that the Indian media is complying with these guidelines. Methods: To encourage responsible media reporting, we developed a scorecard to assess and rate media reports on suicide. We reviewed several resource documents that contained guidelines on responsible reporting of suicide. After consulting with a team of experts, we arrived at a scorecard that consisted of 10 positive and 10 negative parameters. Results: We applied the scorecard to 1318 reports on suicide from 9 English language newspapers, with the highest readership in India between the dates of 1 April to 30 June 2020. For the articles analyzed, the average positive score across all newspapers was 1.32 and the average negative score was 3.31. Discussion: The scorecard can be a useful tool to assess media reports on suicide and provide metrics for the same. It can facilitate improved monitoring and engagement with media organizations, who can quickly check their own reporting compliance to the WHO guidelines and compare how well they are performing compared to their peers over time.
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spelling pubmed-82300352021-06-26 Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India Vijayakumar, Lakshmi Shastri, Manisha Fernandes, Tanya Nicole Bagra, Yash Pathare, Aaryaman Patel, Arpita Jain, Padam Merchant, Yesha Armstrong, Gregory Pathare, Soumitra Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Each year there are more than 800,000 deaths by suicide across the world, while India alone accounts for one third of female suicides and one fourth of male suicides worldwide. Responsible media reporting of suicide is an important suicide prevention intervention at the population level. There is sufficient evidence to show that the way suicide is reported and portrayed in the media can have a significant impact on individuals experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Recognizing the important role of the media in suicide prevention, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued guidelines for responsible reporting of suicides by the media. The Press Council of India, in 2019 endorsed WHO’s guidelines for media reporting of suicides, however there is no evidence that the Indian media is complying with these guidelines. Methods: To encourage responsible media reporting, we developed a scorecard to assess and rate media reports on suicide. We reviewed several resource documents that contained guidelines on responsible reporting of suicide. After consulting with a team of experts, we arrived at a scorecard that consisted of 10 positive and 10 negative parameters. Results: We applied the scorecard to 1318 reports on suicide from 9 English language newspapers, with the highest readership in India between the dates of 1 April to 30 June 2020. For the articles analyzed, the average positive score across all newspapers was 1.32 and the average negative score was 3.31. Discussion: The scorecard can be a useful tool to assess media reports on suicide and provide metrics for the same. It can facilitate improved monitoring and engagement with media organizations, who can quickly check their own reporting compliance to the WHO guidelines and compare how well they are performing compared to their peers over time. MDPI 2021-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8230035/ /pubmed/34201213 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126206 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Vijayakumar, Lakshmi
Shastri, Manisha
Fernandes, Tanya Nicole
Bagra, Yash
Pathare, Aaryaman
Patel, Arpita
Jain, Padam
Merchant, Yesha
Armstrong, Gregory
Pathare, Soumitra
Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India
title Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India
title_full Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India
title_fullStr Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India
title_full_unstemmed Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India
title_short Application of a Scorecard Tool for Assessing and Engaging Media on Responsible Reporting of Suicide-Related News in India
title_sort application of a scorecard tool for assessing and engaging media on responsible reporting of suicide-related news in india
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8230035/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34201213
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126206
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