The first time I covered a death by suicide came about seven months after I joined the Obituaries desk.
Erin Gilmer, a lawyer and disability-rights activist in Colorado, had spent years dealing with an onslaught of debilitating diseases. She died in July 2021, at 38. I remember interviewing a friend of hers who told me all about this bright, vibrant woman who was a fierce defender of people with disabilities and an inspiration to thousands — but who had also struggled for years with depression and chronic pain.
I’ve reported on many deaths by suicide since then. There were the identical-twin singing sisters Alice and Ellen Kessler, who had spent their entire lives — almost 90 years — together. After Ellen suffered a stroke, they decided to end their lives together, too.
Mark Glaze was a crusading gun-control advocate. Billy Sothern was a lawyer who defended death-row inmates. Their loved ones spoke openly with me about the cause of their deaths and about both men’s long struggles with depression, in the hopes of destigmatizing that disease.
On other occasions, people would talk about suicide only reluctantly, or not at all. In some cases, I could infer a death by suicide — sometimes reading between the lines of phrases that family or friends used, like “died suddenly” — but I couldn’t get confirmation.
In one instance, I knew from other news reports that the subject of an obituary had died by suicide, but the reporting wasn’t ironclad. His wife refused to confirm the cause on the record, agreeing to say only that he had recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.
There is more openness about discussing suicide now. But the topic remains tinged with shame, taboos, moralizing and even romanticizing, in a way that other kinds of death are not.
As a reporter, I am trained to tell readers what I know, without fear or favor. But there were facts about the death of Ms. Gilmer, the lawyer and activist in Colorado — about the method, the location and speculation about why she had decided to end her life — that I left out of her obituary. That’s what her friend asked for, and what my editor and I decided was appropriate.
At The New York Times, we try to reach a family member, close friend or associate to confirm a death, and to provide a specific cause, if known. If we know that suicide was involved, we encourage people to say so specifically. But we avoid suggesting a contributing factor — financial loss, divorce, bad grades, bullying — or discussing methods, locations or the content of suicide notes.
Traditionalists among my colleagues sometimes argue that we have a duty to get all the facts out. Even today, I wrestle with the choices I made in the article on Ms. Gilmer and in other obituaries. Was I right to leave out key details? Did I provide sufficient context? Did I use the appropriate language? Should I have avoided mentioning the cause of death altogether?
It is always a delicate balance. Psychologists say that it is important for the news media to cover suicide, to make it easier to discuss and therefore to prevent.
“Journalism and reporting of suicides can actually be part of the solution,” David Jobes, a professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America, told me. “It brings into the larger public an awareness that this is a public-health issue.”
But because it is still seen as different from other kinds of deaths, suicide can arouse certain emotions in loved ones. When I’m interviewing them, family members have spoken to me about their feelings of guilt and shame, about their fears of being judged by friends, colleagues and readers. It takes enormous trust on their part to share these stories, so we have to get it right.
Then there is the risk that reporting on suicide might encourage others to follow suit. Social scientists have a name for this: the Werther effect.
In 1774, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published his short novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” which ends with the hero dying by suicide. The book inspired a rash of copycat deaths among would-be Werthers, to the extent that critics called on Goethe to tack on an admonition to readers — an early version of a trigger warning.
A similar debate erupted in 1911. In an editorial, The Journal of the American Medical Association criticized The Times for including extensive details in its coverage of suicide, claiming that it could fuel a contagion.
When the paper wasn’t trying to hide suicide behind euphemisms — like the old “died suddenly” — it, and many other newspapers of the era, went the other direction with sensationalist, simplistic moralizing coverage. “A Drunken Mother’s Suicide” was one headline in 1880.
The Times responded to the journal with a forceful editorial of its own, arguing that detailed reporting could actually deter suicide, shifting responsibility for copycats onto loved ones and health-care providers.
“The reading of the details of suicides suggests to normal minds their utter folly and cowardliness,” the editors wrote. “Those in whom it would lodge insane suggestions have already shown, by their behavior, that they need the watchful care of friends and physicians.”
The paper’s position reflected the prevailing opinion that suicide was either a moral failing or the result of psychotic irrationality — in either case, beyond the scope of “normal” society.
But as our understanding of suicide has evolved, so, too, has the news media’s coverage.
The Times’s 1961 obituary for Ernest Hemingway attributed his death to an accident while cleaning his shotgun, which is what his wife, Mary, initially told the authorities.
But in a follow-up article in the paper five years later, she not only confirmed his death by suicide but also discussed his ongoing mental-health struggles — as well as her own efforts to help him and her difficulty at coming to terms with his death.
“In the very first day I could not accept the fact,” she said. “Later I admitted it to myself. I spoke about it to friends.”
Including this sort of information was a big step forward. Instead of condemning Hemingway or teasing apart details, the article discussed his suicide in the context of his mental health. And it gave voice to the people around him, which psychologists say is a potential deterrent for people contemplating self-harm.
Still, progress by the news media has been uneven, even as researchers have amassed evidence that lurid, overly specific coverage of suicides, especially those of celebrities, may encourage copycats.
Following a national workshop convened by the Department of Health and Human Services in 1989, several groups, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adopted guidelines for reporting on suicide, including the recommendation that the news media shy away from implying a particular motivation.
“Suicide is so complex, and it really is unfair to link it to one thing,” said Holly Wilcox, a professor in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins University, which publishes its own guidelines. “The literature shows that that’s not the way things are.”
After an initial reluctance to accept outside guidelines, newsrooms began adopting basic principles like these in the early 1990s, and largely followed them when the musician Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994. While most newspapers reported on the location and method of his death, they also included extensive discussions of his persistent depression; several included suicide-crisis resources as well.
It worked. Dr. Jobes, of the Catholic University of America, was part of a team that studied the media coverage of Mr. Cobain’s death, which found that in the months after, suicide rates dipped in the United States, a trend that he attributed to the change in coverage. (A different study in Australia, where new guidelines were also followed, found a similar effect.)
When we cover suicide at The Times, we choose our words carefully. Psychologists warn that phrasing like “committed suicide” or saying that a suicide was “unsuccessful” — once common in newspaper coverage — can be stigmatizing or judgmental. Instead, we write “died by suicide.”
We also try to provide context, ideally in the voices of those who knew the person well. We want to convey the existence of mental health issues, for example, or a history of suicidal thoughts or acts. We include a note telling people experiencing thoughts of self-harm where they can go for help.
Suicide is never an easy thing to cover. One of an obituary writer’s challenges is to destigmatize talking about it while maintaining a barrier against the act itself.
We always have to remember that behind these obituaries are families and friends grappling with a loved one’s decision, and hoping that they can transcend despair to find a way to accept it.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
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