The BBC has a very thoughtful blogpost about reporting on Bridgend. The difficulties they highlight are very real; providing context with statistics from previous years or other areas, making sure the reports do not glamourise or otherwise encourage further suicides, and more generally choosing sensitivity over sensationalism. All, of course, things that the Guardian strives to do too, and Murray Armstrong has explained the intense debate at the Guardian news conference about our own coverage of Bridgend.
The BBC's piece was of course prompted by complaints from the family of Nathaniel Pritchard that media coverage had been "unbearable", and likely to encourage further suicides.
The Glamorgan Gazette, meanwhile, claims to have attracted praise for its "sensitive" reporting; what's interesting is that the Gazette's website today carries 10 articles about the suicides, suggesting that it is the tone rather than the fact of reporting which can be harmful.
Among the many tragic statistics about the matter, one of the most compelling is that detailed by Philip Irwin in the Guardian earlier this week, that suicide figures from previous years in Bridgend are similar. Irwin works for the Bridgend Samaritans, so is well placed to comment.
So, even if the suicides are not unusual, or are unconnected, as the police still maintain, perhaps the media attention has had one good outcome. At least we are all now aware of the scale of the problem.
