Did the CDC guidelines for suicide reports affect the New York Times?

Abstract

DID THE CDC GUIDELINES FOR SUICIDE REPORTS AFFECT THE NEW YORK TIMES? by Joni K. Marshburn The CDC informed the American media of the best way to avoid contributing to imitative suicides by releasing guidelines for suicide reports in 2001. In this study, suicide reports in the New York Times were examined to establish if these guidelines affected the reporting. To determine if there was any change, all suicide reports from five years before, the year of guideline release, and five years after were extracted from the Times database. To determine compliance, articles were coded using a coding sheet that operationalized the guidelines into 12 yes-or-no questions. The New York Times observed nearly one and a half guidelines more in 2006 than 10 years before, from about 5 to nearly 6.5 observed. Some guidelines were observed differently in 2001, suggesting greater focus on the topic. However, only some of the changes were in line with the guidelines, and none of them lasted five years. Some guidelines, such as those to include intervention resources, conflicted with journalism norms and were never followed. Others, like the one discouraging front page placement, fell in line with the journalism standards of the New York Times and so were always followed. On the whole, the change in 2001 suggests that the guidelines did have an effect, but it was mixed and did not last five years. The increased observance overall suggests that the evolving standards of the New York Times agreed more with the media guidelines over the ten years. DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Jane and Tom Marshburn, for their support throughout this time in graduate school and for the belief in the possibility of final success, despite the obstacles. It is also dedicated to my fiance Ricardo Jamin, for his never-failing comfort and stability during this grueling process. Thanks are due to the members of my committee, Prof. Ulrich and Dr. Martinelli, for their close reading of my thesis and especially to my primary Dr. Tillinghast, for his encouragement and dedication to this project. Great appreciation is also due to Katie Foley, my coder. Her coding and data entry contributions greatly increased the efficiency of this study.