By MULESKINNER STAFF

As the campus newspaper, the Muleskinner plays an important role in disseminating university and community news to our readers. This includes when people die due to accidents or natural causes, which are already sad to cover because we are a small enough campus that at least one of the news staff knows the person who died.

Unfortunately, we sometimes lose a member of campus to suicide, which we usually don’t report out of respect for family and friends. Each painful incident brings back the discussion of if and how to cover it.

Two weeks ago, the university lost a student to suicide. We elected to report it as a suicide — releasing the student’s name in the story — because it happened in a public space. Furthermore, the university had already released his name in a campuswide email. In order to quell rumors circulating around campus and through social media, we reported what information Warrensburg police gave us in a press release, as well as information from the university’s email.

The Journalist’s Resource, a project of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, published an article last week on how news media impacts suicide trends.

“Journalists generally are discouraged from reporting on suicide, and many news agencies have formal or informal policies against it,” the Journalist’s Resource stated. “They make exceptions, however, when prominent figures such as celebrities or community leaders take their own lives or when a rash of suicides erupts among a specific group of people.”

This was essentially the same advice our faculty adviser gave us on the matter last week, and in every other conversation we’ve had about covering suicides, including the loss of a local high school student two years ago in the parking lot of a car wash near campus. Our adviser also thinks there are no strict rules on the issue and that suicide coverage must be treated case by case.

When he reached out to two fellow teachers and a former editor on the subject, however, he received quite the opposite response: They said suicides should be given the same treatment as accidents and crime. However, coverage should be handled with great care for the sake of victims’ families and friends.

The end goal is to paint the picture of the person’s life, and to treat suicide as a public health issue. And certainly, we believe that suicide is indeed a public health issue and isn’t something to be sensationalized or dramatized. The last thing any of us want to do is contribute to copycat suicides.

Studies of copycat suicides have concluded that media reporting of suicide can lead to imitative behaviors, according to the World Health Organization Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse’s guide, “Preventing Suicide: A Resource for Media Professionals.”

The suicide rate in Missouri has been higher than the national rate for over a decade, according to a report titled “Suicide in Missouri: Where We Stand,” by the Missouri Institute of Mental Health. Furthermore, suicide is the second leading cause of death among Missouri young adults aged 15 to 24. The use of firearms is also the primary means of suicide across the state.

We believe the best thing we can do for our readership is to consider the emotions of the bereaved. And for a relatively small campus community like UCM, we think providing resources for suicide prevention and counseling is one of the most important things we can do.

We are not experts on mental illness and suicides, but here are some helpful tips. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please consider using these resources.

Pathways

Pathways offers counseling on substance abuse and mental health. The office at 520 Burkarth Rd. can be reached at 660-747-7127. The organization’s website also has resources available at pathwaysonline.org.

Warrensburg High School

The Warrensburg R-VI School District has a list of resources in the community and nationally, which is available at bit.ly/1QmDzvz. The Web page also includes tips on dos and don’ts in suicide risk prevention assessment.

Missouri Department of Mental Health

The Missouri Department of Mental Health has a list of resources on suicide prevention available online at dmh.mo.gov/mentalillness/suicide/.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has resources available at nationalpreventionlifeline.org and has a hotline at 800-273-8255. The lifeline also provides services for the Veterans Crisis Line at the same phone number.