Citation

Boudry V. Newsp. Res. J. 2008; 29(2): 55-69.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication)

DOI

10.1177/073953290802900205

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The article examines newspaper coverage of suicide. Although mental illness is the most common risk factor contributing to suicide, less than 20 percent of newspaper stories on suicides mention it as a possible cause. Comparison of U.S. coverage of suicides in 1993 and 2003 through a search of the Lexis-Nexis database was used to see how suicide was "framed," or placed in a social context. It was found that while mentions of mental illness increased in the intervening decade, they still remained far less than what medical research into suicide has indicated is the case.