EDITORIAL OPINIONS.

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

EDITORIAL OPINIONS.

I have read with much interest the letter addressed by Dr. Alexander to the editor of the Otago Daily Times, and the extract from Sharland-'s New Zealand Journal. I can quite believe that the accounts of suicides and other tragedies published in the newspapers often affect mentally weak, people in the way described by Dr. Alexander., and 1 should be very glad to see some united action taken by the members of your Association, to lessen the evil. , Sharland's New Zealand- Journal is mistaken in assuming that the force of competition" among the newspapers of this country is not strong enough to induce them to publish details of which their editors disapprove. No journal can afford to habitually withhold sensational news items, which its contemporaries -are continually publishing, but if the metropolitan newspapers agreed not to publish details of suicides, either at" the ~ime of the occurrence or at the inquest, much good might be done. The Press Association is the worst offender in serving up horrors of all kinds for public consumption. A large proportion of its messages deal with tragedies of the most revolting kind, dressed up in the vivid language of condensation, and proba.bly these are the accounts to which .Dr. Alexander particularly refers. These should be stopped at their, source. A newspaper must take some notice of its local tragedies or fail in its duty to the public, but there is no good reason why it should be supplied by cable with tragedies from the uttermost ends of the earth. . I shall be pleased to learn that the members of your Association have de^ cided to give effect <au far as possible to Dr. Alexander's suggestion. 6. SAUNDBRS, Editor X/yttelton Times.

Your circular letter of the 26th re the question of reporting suicides, to hand. . Our Managing Director, Mr W. J Geddis-, is away on a trip to Europe, and therefore ccnnot reply. As howover, the nature of tlie circular suggests that probably editorial views are required, I may, without incongruity, make some suggestions. In tha first place, if it be held that suicides (or, say, inquests in the case of suicide) are not to be reported, why should charges of murder, of robbery, of discharging explosives for criminal purposes, be reported ? Practically.all news is ill news. The contents of a

newspaper, froni Tthe news aspect, refer, in the main, to wars in being, or wars expected, to .murders, fires, robberies, rapes s eatastrophies of various kinds, political and social corruption, and so on. It is'the function of newspapers to gather news. To gather news means to obtain details concerning happenings nearly always unpleasant and unedifying, from the iroralist's point of view', and, in some cases, actually stocking. Among such happenings come suicides. If these are not. to be reported, why draw the line there? Why report anything at all? Now, as to tho excerpt from Sharland's Journal, taken from an American jiapoiv This argues that if A commits suicide, and the facts connected with tnis are reported, B, and possibly C and B, will be led to imitat* him. An illustration is given in the Bhapo of the Boan_ Bridge in Edin'biurgh. I may point out that the proves too much, and so disproves what is sought to be proved. ;The theory is that A jumps off Bean Bridge. The fact is made known, and then "a crop of similar suicides follow." But, if the crop is due to publicity, and the ''crop" is in turn reported, then it should be followed by a still larger "crop," and so on indefinitely until we arrive at a stream of weak-minded persons chasing each other for a chance to jump off Dean" Bridge The saner view is that a person with a suicidal tendency may be stimulated into committing suicide by reading of. some other suicide, but that he ov she might be equally, prompted by hearing in conversation of a suicide, even if there were no such things >as nev/apapers at all in existence. Further, to abolish' £he reporting in newspapers of such occurrences would not mean the abolitionof reporting them. If left out of the newspapers they would be actively discussed and commented upon in places of public resort, and, as in discussions of this kind, the imagination has free play, the details,are more likely, to be misunderstood, more likely to take on a morbid .and sensa.tional tinge, than if published accurately in the shape of* a report of 1 actual facts, and of investigation into such facts

Personally, I do not know that I have ever been anxious to re"ad reporta of occurrences of the kind, but while "news" papers exist to retail news, ro seems to me that what'should or should not be published by a newspaper must largely depend on the desire of the public for news. If to report' that A procured poison and killed himself is likely to induce B to do likewise, then to narrate ,in reporting a court case, how X broke into a house or how Z picked a- pocket is, by parity of reasoning, likely to induce other, persons to commence burglary and pocket-picking. Of course, all happenings should be "decorously" reported, but that is another question. What is raised in the circular is not the question of good or bad reporting, but the suppression of reports-. My opinion' is that there is in New Zealand a high standard of journalistic ethics .and practice, ..and that what should bo suppressed1, and what should be published, may be safely left to the iiwfement of editors and sub-editors. JOHN W. McDOUGALL, Editor Daily Telegraph.

. The subject opened up by Dr. C. H. Alexander is one of great difficulty and complexity. That there is a great deal in his contention nobody will deny, but there is another side to the question. The newspapers have to report suicides, murders, accidents, coroner's inquests, and criminal cases, even though they know that the reading is not particularly instructive, and certainly^ not morally edifying. Yet tragedies and sordid oases of the police court are all part of th© day's life, and the daily newspaper that appears without reference to them is incomplete and imperfect. Still, the newspapers can minimise evil effects by publishing the facts baldly, free from particulars, which are of no interest except to the prurient or to the morbidly curious. I think most of the newspapers of New Zealand make it a fixed policy W~ publish' distressing news without coloring it up to make it appeal to the public taste for sensa-

tion. That is certainly the policy of reputable newspapers, and, with a view to ensure unanimity, and even greater care in the future. Dr. Alexandier's letter might be laid before the Newspaper Proprietors at their next meeting. n Yours faithfully, ROBERT J. GILMOUR, Managing.Director Southland Times. (To be Continued.)