Progress towards prevention of suicide in India by improving print media reporting of suicide news: a repeat content analysis study in Tamil Nadu.

objectivesSuicide rates in India are among the highest in the world, with the most recent suicide death rate estimates ranging between 18 and 21 deaths per 100 000 population (compared with the global average of 11/100 000). Responsible media reporting of suicide is one of the few evidence-based population-level suicide prevention interventions. Reports of recent suicides are a routine daily feature in major newspapers in India, and the reporting style carries many concerning features. In 2019, the Press Council of India adopted the WHO media guidelines, yet there has been no investigation as to whether this guidance is being followed. The aim of this paper was to systematically investigate whether the quality of print media reports of suicides has changed since the adoption of media guidelines for suicide reporting in India.

designWe used content analysis to assess the quality of suicide reporting against WHO guidelines in nine of the most highly read daily newspapers in the southern state of Tamil Nadu between June and December 2016 and June and December 2023. Our analyses of changes in reporting were based on a sample of 1681 print newspaper articles from 2016 and 512 print newspaper articles from 2023. Two-tailed t-tests and proportion tests on aggregate means and frequencies assessed whether the reporting characteristics had changed between 2016 and 2023.

resultsThere were small yet statistically discernible reductions in the proportion of articles containing various potentially harmful reporting characteristics, such as articles placed on the front page (4.9-1.8%, p=0.002) and articles mentioning the suicide method (92.7-86.5%, p<0.001). There were statistically discernible increases in the proportion of articles containing various potentially helpful reporting characteristics, such as recognition of the link between suicide and poor mental health (7.6-10.5%, p=0.035), mentions of suicide prevention support services/programmes (3.6-11.7%, p<0.001) and the provision of contact details for a suicide support service (2.5-8.8%, p<0.001). There was no statistically discernible improvement in several quality indicators, for example, providing a detailed account of the suicide method (43.1-38.9%, p=0.092), the naming of publicly accessible sites where suicides have occurred (8.2-10.0%, p=0.216), dispelling of suicide myths (2.0-1.8%, p=0.705) and drawing on expert opinions from mental health professionals (1.2-2.0%, p=0.238). In some instances, quality indicators had worsened, such as an increase in articles published in the first three pages of the newspaper (16.8-19.1%, p<0.001) and the use of monocausal explanations for the suicidal behaviour (53.4-70.7%, p<0.001). Analyses at the newspaper level showed that the small improvements that were observed were mainly driven by quite profound improvements in the quality of reporting by two English-language newspapers. For example, at The Hindu, there was a very large decrease in the proportion of articles mentioning the suicide method (85.7-14.3%, p<0.001) and increases in the proportion of articles dispelling suicide myths (2.5-21.4%, p=0.001) and providing contact details for a suicide support service (32.8-71.4%, p=0.005). Conversely, there were largely no observable improvements in reporting by any individual Tamil-language newspaper.

conclusionsWe observed substantial improvements in the reporting quality of some English-language newspapers, with minimal improvements in the quality of reporting in Tamil-language newspapers. The media guidelines in India are supporting the early phases of a culture shift on media reporting of suicide, yet they are just the start of the conversation. Strategies are required to engage and support vernacular language newspapers in India on their reporting of suicide, with media sector leadership as a core component.