Suicide and the news

With the suicide of the D.C. madam, TV news outlets across the country have been updating the story daily including yesterday's release of the official cause of death and suicide notes. After working in a newsroom for 13 years, I can easily count the number of times we've covered suicides on the air and the Web. And as you can guess most of those stories were about high profile people who killed themselves.

Al Tompkins at The Poynter Institute will tell you while it's one of the leading causes of death, journalists usually avoid covering suicide. As a producer in several different newsrooms across the country I was told "we don't cover suicides." And in almost every single one of those newsrooms, there came an opportunity to ask why and what about this one?

One of my friends and former coworkers killed himself last April. Many of you who read this blog from the Tampa Bay area remember John Winter well. When I first came to Tampa I produced the morning show at WFLA-TV, and for the seven years I worked there John Winter remained one of my favorite people at the station. I no longer worked there at the time of his suicide, but I received a lot of calls to make sure I didn't see it on TV first. I was shocked, sad, angry, confused and more. Then I talked to my boss at my TV station and she asked if it was okay for us to run it. They wanted to be respectful.

A year later, I still have a hard time believing he's gone. While many of us will never understand how someone like John Winter could commit suicide, someone does it every 16 minutes in the U.S., according to the CDC. The CDC also says, "Suicide is usually a complicated response to overwhelming problems as opposed to a simple, unplanned reaction to one life challenge. In others words, it is not as simple as saying “he was unhappy with last week’s game” or some such explanation." And that's what makes it so difficult to understand. When one of your friends commits suicide you can't help but wonder if there were signs you should have noticed, if there was something you could have done, etc.

I learned this lesson two years earlier. My ex-boyfriend from high school and his twin brother both killed themselves within five months of eachother. When my ex-boyfriend's brother, who was also one of my friends, committed suicide I knew in my gut his brother was next. I just knew it. I even sent him a letter. I hadn't talked to my ex-boyfriend in years, but I thought if he could just know someone cared then perhaps he'd get help and avoid following in his brother's footsteps. In my letter I acknowledged we really didn't know eachother any more, but we used to care about eachother and I still wanted to do anything I could to help. I knew he must be devastated by his brother's death and gave him my phone number and e-mail address in case he ever wanted to talk. I never heard from him.

Just a few short months later, I received a phone call from their sister. She found my phone number programmed in his cell and assumed we'd been talking again. She wanted to let me know about what happened. I couldn't say I was surprised, but I was still so very sad that he couldn't find another way to deal with his problems. I booked a flight to go home for the funeral, but things beyond my control kept me from actually making it there. For some reason I thought there would be some answers at the funeral, though the thought of seeing his family in such pain after two suicides was almost too much to think about. I eventually spent time with their mother and sister a few months later and couldn't believe how amazingly they were coping. I stayed in touch for a while, but I haven't talked to either woman in a while. But I still think about them all the time. And I still think of both of the men who were once a part of my life and how I'll never see them again.

It's tragic that two men in their early 30s didn't think they had enough reason to live. Every once in a while I tell people about the twins and how they both committed suicide. And I'm not sure what I'm looking for people to say. Maybe I just want to share the story so I'm not holding it all inside. Maybe I just wish someone else will hear these stories and realize there's help out there, that life is not that hopeless. I also wish we talked about suicide more on the news instead of acting like it's so taboo. I wish we always followed the stories with a link to the National Suicide Prevention Website and the hotline number 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Stylishly yours,
Miss Attitude