Reporting Femicide-Suicide in the News: The Current Utilization of Suicide Reporting Guidelines and Recommendations for the Future

Abstract

Public health officials have developed and disseminated recommendations for the responsible reporting of suicide in an effort to dispel myths about suicide-completers and minimize contagion effects. However, recommendations as to the reporting of homicide-suicide events have not been a priority in these initiatives. The current study assesses the degree to which newspaper coverage of the most commonly occurring type of homicide-suicide event, femicide-suicide, adhere to existing suicide reporting recommendations by examining newspaper coverage (n=143) of a population of femicide-suicide cases (n=83) from North Carolina for the years 2002-2009. The current study demonstrates the importance of developing and disseminating reporting guidelines to assist in dispelling myths about the victims and perpetrators of lethal intimate partner violence

Representation of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Swedish News Media: A Discourse Analysis

“…Individualistic discursive tendencies in media reporting on IPVAW are further expressed in the rare inclusion of IPVAW experts or of reference to resources such as helplines or local shelters (Fairbairn & Dawson, 2013;Hernández, 2018;Leung, 2019;Richards et al, 2014). Acts of IPVAW have often been depicted as cases of "snapping" or as "crimes of passion," with violence represented as sudden or unavoidable, even when it was premeditated or continuous (Fairbairn & Dawson, 2013;Lloyd & Ramon, 2017;Meyers, 1996;Richards et al, 2014). Such tendencies toward individualization of IPVAW, and of representing the violence as sudden, coexists with research pointing to IPVAW existing across sociodemographic groups (Lundgren et al, 2002;Nybergh et al, 2013) and often taking the form of a continuum of violence (Kelly, 1988).…”

Changing representations of intimate partner femicides by a Portuguese newspaper (2006 and 2014): from episodic to thematic frames

“…Sutherland and colleagues (2016) examined the guidelines developed by several countries to encourage responsible and ethical reporting of VAW. According to these guidelines and recommendations of other authors in this field (López Diéz 2002;Lledó Cunill 2003;Richards et al 2014), the coverage of VAW must use thematic frames to present the crime as a social problem. That is, journalistic coverage should present statistics about the prevalence, incidence, and reporting rates of the problem; use terminology to identify the violence as a crime that violates human rights and not just another murder; contextualize the incident reported in a continuum of violence; highlight the lack of legal protection of women that denounce IPV; make an effort to quote and give voice to experts and advocates in the area; and provide resources available to women, such as crisis and support helplines.…”

“…This means that journalistic coverage should not use episodic frames to present the crime as an isolated case. That is, coverage of VAW should not represent the perpetrator as a madman, a monster or a psychopath, implying that men's use of violence is done only by mentally disturbed individuals; attribute as a main cause for the crime an isolated factor; use expressions that imply mutuality in the abuse; promulgate myths or misconceptions about IPV against women; present the IPV or IPF as a «crime of passion»; and ignore the existence and meaningful impacts of psychological violence (López Diéz 2002;Lledó Cunill 2003;Richards et al 2014;Sutherland et al 2016).…”

“…Equally, journalistic coverage of VAW must not contain elements of victim blaming, such as representing the victim as responsible for the aggression (López Diéz 2002;Richards et al 2014;Sutherland et al 2016), asking what she has done to provoke or cause the violence (López Diéz 2002) or inadvertently blaming her by referencing her behavior prior to, during, or after the violence (Sutherland et al 2016). Likewise, it must also not present justifications for the perpetrator by stating he was too «in love» or «jealous» or in any other way that could be interpreted to excuse his behavior (López Diéz 2002) or by focusing on his positive characteristics, mitigating his accountability for the crime (Richards et al 2014).…”

“…Previous studies about the journalistic portrayals of IPV (Berns 2001;Car-lyle et al 2008;), intimate partner homicide (Bullock and Cubert 2002;Bullock 2008;Wozniak and McCloskey 2010;Fairbairn and Dawson 2013), IPF (Richards et al 2011;Gillespie et al 2013;Comas-d'Argemir 2014), and intimate partner femicide-suicide (Richards et al 2013;Richards et al 2014) have focused on at least some of the aforementioned thematic and episodic frames. These studies have come to the conclusion that thematic frames, such as the reference to other cases of IPV or IPF; the mention of its rates or tendencies; the adequate description of its dynamics and social and psychological impacts; the indication of available resources to victims; and the contextualization of the particular event as involving IPV, either through the use of specific terms or the depiction of a previous pattern of abuse by the perpetrator against the victim, are rarely used (Bullock and Cubert 2002;Bullock 2008;Carlyle et al 2008;Wozniak and McCloskey 2010;Richards et al 2011;Fairbairn and Dawson 2013;Gillespie et al 2013;Richards et al 2013;Sutherland et al 2016).…”