|
Hi Aaron,
The major news story to come out of Melbourne this week is the two 16 year old girls from Belgrave who made a pact to commit suicide together. The girls were missing for a week before the pact and their bodies were discovered not far from where they live. A tragic story for the family, relatives, and friends of the girls.
The diffference between their suicide story and the great majority of others, is that theirs was all over the media. I personally belive that the media will not report on a suicide unless they absolutely have to. If somoene's jumped off a bridge, it seems you will hear about it on the radio in a traffic report, saying the below road is blocked, and never again. It doesn't make a good story.
For these girls it's been different. The media was all over them because it was the story of two missing girls. If they hadn't been missing for a week, would we have heard about their tragic deaths?
It's been one of the few times that programs such as Lifeline and Beyond Blue have been able to step up and talk to the public about the help they can offer depressed teens.
Many people have been effected by the suicidal death of a friend or family member, but it is not something we hear about on our TV screens. What impact has the media's coverage of these girls' deaths had on the public? Hi Cathy, You're very right, suicide is actually a no-no in the media. And the irony is that it's the Myspace/internet apect that "made" this a story, in my opinion. Girls go missing ll the time, it's never reported - but a myspace suicide pact! That's the agle to sell the papers, etc, it plays on a fear. Today, stories must play on a cultural fear - such as the internet, in this case. And as you know, I'm very quick to point out the flaws and dangers of the internet age. But it must be said, that as far as their pact being on myspace goes, I don't think it was responsible, as such. I do think there is a glorification of suicide that young people can get access to on the net, though, yes. It's just one of the problems with the net - it comes, ironically, from what's so good about it. But teen suicide is not a new problem, and it annoys me that the girls' deaths are presented in a very shallow shock-horror "the internet will make your kids kill themselves" kind of way. The internet can provide things that will certainly make a teen who is suicidial worse and more likely, but it's not what depresses them to a point where they would take their own lives, in the first place. And we don't want to look at that angle, do we? No. Much easier to blame the internet. This is one case where that blame, in my opinion, has been placed too heavily on that. But it has given Beyond Blue, etc, the chance to step up and get some media, so yes, that's a positive. But I fear the public are left in a spin about the net side of it, and they need to look uch further into why our kids are killing themselves. Thanks, as always, Aaron
|
