The Leveson inquiry should encourage more sensitive media coverage of suicides to help prevent copycat deaths

Abstract

Much of the evidence given at the Leveson Inquiry so far has focused on invasion of privacy and harassment by the press and press intrusion into grief and shock. These issues are currently laid out in the Editors’ Code of Practice, regulated by the Press Complaints Commission. Nicola Peckett, Head of Communications at Samaritans, looks at how suicides are reported by the media, which hasn’t yet come under the spotlight at the Leveson Inquiry, and explains why it shoul