What would you have chosen to do as a journalist in this situation? Because this case study is intended primarily as a teaching resource, a password is required to view the epilogue. The purpose is to encourage readers to pause and think about how they would resolve the difficulty, before learning how the journalist(s) involved […]

Throughout March and April of 2019, Roumeliotis and her team continued negotiations with the TTC for access to information and footage, and learning how their story could be told responsibly. They also continued to have conversations internally about how a story like this could match CBC’s  journalistic standards.  By late spring, it was time to […]

Through casting a wide net in their search for expertise, Roumeliotis and her team did find some who were cautiously willing to participate. She asked these experts for advice on how to frame the story, and what pitfalls to avoid.  “You don’t usually go to experts to tell you how to write your story,” Roumeliotis […]

When a team led by Western University journalism professor Cliff Lonsdale created Mindset: Reporting on Mental Health in 2014, their goal was to help Canadian journalists navigate a wide range of issues connected with mental health. Use of the guide is intended to decrease stigma surrounding mental-health issues, and improve reporting on the subject.  Today, […]

Another element of suicide coverage for the CBC newsroom to consider was whether or not this story would be sensationalizing or romanticizing the topic of suicide in any way. Suicide reporting guides are clear that essentially glorifying these deaths runs the risk that a person in distress might relate and decide to move forward.1“A Quick […]

There has historically been little guidance for how to tell stories about suicide responsibly, but most guidelines are clear on one aspect: journalists should avoid describing how people cause their own deaths.   The Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) released updated guidelines in 2017 for suicide reporting. One of its main points: “reports should generally avoid details […]

Although Roumeliotis and her team felt strongly that this story was in the public interest, they could not ignore a long-standing taboo on covering topics related to suicide. Cliff Lonsdale, president of the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma, says this taboo comes from a long-held theory known as  suicide contagion. According to contagion […]

The first piece of the puzzle was to examine why this particular story was in the public interest.  The CBC’s statement of journalistic standards and practices  states: “Our mission is to inform, to reveal, to contribute to the understanding of issues of public interest and to encourage citizens to participate in a free and democratic […]