Passive Observers

A recent study (well, it was recent when I read it) estimated that, for every 100.000 people living in Portugal, 10.3 committed suicide every year. Obviously nobody cares about the suicidal 1/3 of person, but the others account to over one thousand per year all over the country. It the major cause of death amongst violent ones.

In order to address this issue,  the study proposes some measures such as resctriction of access to lethal means, as well as an increase on the price of booze. While the first makes perfect (despite being hard to implement) the latter hardly makes sense to me: paying extra to drown one's sorrows should  make people more miserable, not less.

At any rate, what really caught my attention was another recommendation, stating that journalists should have special training so as to know when and how to cover suicides, since this can have a devasting effect in its spread.

This is very interesting, since it clearly moves journalists away from their usual (percepted) passive observer state to an intervening one. This is absolutely true, and it is an important issue due to it being extremely hard to legistate: freedom of spech is a Human Right which is specially dear and relevant to the press/media. Apart from ongoing investigations, journalists are pretty much free to report anything they want, also choosing when and how to do it. Hell, if you live in Portugal you can even drop that constraint.

There are two things I really think the media should be trying to improve. The first is how to report news. Certainly the 100% rational and unbiased journalist is an utopia, but they could at least pretend they are trying. Sensacionalism and biased views  are (increasingly) winning the battle over seriousness. The second is what to report. In my opining, a TV newscast on a public channel should not waste fifteen minutes (each day) of its time talking about football. Nor should it let terrorists spread their message to the world, since we really should not care.

But wait, nevermind that, ratings are more important.


Filipe Baptista de Morais