PUBLICITY A CAUSE OP SUICIDE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 64, 16 March 1911, Page 3

PUBLICITY A CAUSE OP SUICIDE.

The American Medical Association carried the following important resolution at their recent; sixty-first session, held at St. Louis: — Resolvedv "That it is the sens© of the Hou.&n of Delegates of the American Medical Association that the publication of ;tho details of suicide by newspapers is one of the potent causes o^other suicides by the suggestive influence of such published details, and it is therefor I©' recommended to the public Press that the details of Buicide bo omitted from publication. Every reader of newspapers must' regret the publication not only of the details of suicides, but also of other tragedies of life, and1 "now that the power' of suggestive influence is more intelligently appreciated, the more decent journals will doubtless show their responsibility in connection with such matters by wisely excluding from their cbluinns those morbid items that impress morbid minds with the suggestion Udo wrong. In New Zealand the Press are not moved by the force of competition to publish undesirable information. .' .The leading journals are so well established that they can exclude any matter they deem to be detrimental to the moral welfare of the community, and, further, they know that such a policy, will always meet with the support of the general Sublic. At the next conference of the ■ewspaper Proprietors' Association the subject of "Publicity a Cause of Crime, Divorce, and Suicide, would no doubt furnish an interesting and perhaps profitable discussion. Our newspapers may be a mirror of life, but is it their function to-accentuate by detail, by the microscopic examination, those'subjects and tragedies of life which are not the reflection of a desirable and healthy civilisation?