New advice to editors on reporting suicides

New advice to editors on how to report suicides in the aftermath of the series of deaths of young people in Bridgend has been published today.
It is contained in the new edition of the editors' codebook, the official handbook to the editors’ code of practice, which underpins the work of the Press Complaints Commission.
Other major revisions of the handbook cover data protection, privacy and intrusion into grief.
On suicide, the codebook suggests there are areas where editors might voluntarily mitigate the effects of legitimate publicity surrounding the reporting of suicides.
These include reporting helpline numbers when covering suicide stories; considering whether it is necessary to republish images of others who have taken their own lives when covering a new suicide; and not using photographs supplied by friends or from social networking sites, without the close family's consent.
The editors' codebook is written by former Western Daily Press editor Ian Beales, who is secretary to the editors' code of practice committee.
Copies are available from the PCC and in PDF format on the committee's website.
I have done a longer story for Press Gazette here.