The treatment that is given to the news of deaths due to external causes can condition new fatal accidents. In the case of traffic accidents there is much more information than in cases of accidental falls and choking. Preventive guidelines should also be indicated to avoid new accidents. As for suicides, we must take note of an adequate treatment of the news, especially in the case of famous people, which can cause imitations of behavior.
Your observation is very important.However, it is fruitless discussing this between you and me when we realize very well how such death must be reported so that it will not only act as a preventive measure but also as a deterrent to others. Only thing that can be said in such a context is that the media must have certain responsibilities to the society (which in many cases is missing) and they report such cases only to sell it to the public and make money.
Drawing on Marshall McLuhan's theoretical perspective, when a media is treated then it would be converted into a form of art. This is particularly true when that media is treated by another media. Thus, as a form of art, what you stated is correct.
Initiatives are taken in the form of research, but it doesn’t reaches the destination i.e., implementation. Treatment of media in regards to the death due to external cause is considered to be supplementary news or to override a event of criticism.
In addition, and more specific to your question, the media is a profit-motivated information machine. if exaggeration, graphic and doctored photographs gets more subscriptions or more sales, then there is clear motivation to use such elements of "news". It has been going on for a very long time and information about death (from external causes like murder?) always get eager readers. Look at TV drama, movies, novels or blogs and become distressed at how much is devoted to people killing other people!
The press has an ethical obligation to tell the truth, but editors tend to select which truths to be told, and I believe that too frequently marketability of "the story" will drive which stories get onto "page 1" versus somewhere lost in the middle of any kind of media.
If we had trust in the media to tell the truth, and equivalent confidence in some national leaders to tell the truth, what a wonderful world we would have!
Thank you very much for your answers. They are very helpful in the approach of my thesis. I see clearly that communication plays an essential role in the possibility of avoiding deaths due to accidents. The role of politicians is also important in this regard, but they need to have evidence of this premise in front of them. That is why I consider necessary an investigation on how the treatment of information affects the news of a fatal accident. Once the conclusions are in hand, perhaps some new articles should be incorporated into the deontological code of the media.
Try to use non-fatal accidents too. Proximity to emergency care may be as important in determining "fatal" or "injury - producing" classifications. Those crashes that are fatal may skew the data as an artifact of the crash being more distant from medical care.
Good observation Richard. The indication is very successful and very useful for my work. Thank you very much.
Interesting thoughts, but it is not the role of journalism to provide beneficial "treatments" with respect to news stories. In fact, that is the opposite of the role of journalism.
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