By Elizabeth Larkwor Baah
Oyarifa, Jan. 16, GNA- Professor Emmanuel Nii Boye Quarshie, President of the Ghana Association of Suicide Prevention (GASP), has cautioned journalists against applying the conventional five Ws and H to suicide reporting.
Professor Quarshie warned that the routine journalistic instinct to answer who, what, where, when, why, and how could do more harm than good in suicide reporting, explaining that excessive detail, especially around circumstances, had the potential to trigger imitation.
He made this known during a capacity building of media practitioners on suicide prevention reporting organised by GASP in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the University of Ghana’s Department of Psychology.
The programme was aimed at raising awareness of the WHO’s guidelines on suicide reporting, while also educating participants on the application of localised guidelines within the same context.
The initiative was held under the theme, “Role of Media in Suicide Prevention in Ghana: Application of the Ghana Guidelines for Appropriate Media Reporting of Suicide (GGAMRS) and the Ghana Suicide Reporting Scorecard (GSRS) for Appropriate Media Reporting of Self-Harm and Suicide.”
Professor Quarshie, who is also with the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana pleaded with journalists to rethink long-held practices and place human lives above narrative completeness to transform from a silent risk factor into a powerful ally for suicide prevention.
He noted that suicide was not just a story but a vulnerable moment in the lives of families, communities, and readers who might already be struggling; as such, when journalists provide detailed narratives, they might unintentionally present suicide as an option to those at risk.
He said vulnerable individuals often saw fragments of their pain reflected in such stories when it contained explicit, repetitive, or sensational stories as they could normalise despair rather than encourage help-seeking, noting that global studies showed that media reportage encouraged or limited suicide.
Prof Quarshie appealed that suicide should be reported as a public health issue, with focus shifting from the act itself to prevention, recovery, and the availability of support systems, saying that media reports could reopen grief that had barely begun to heal.
He encouraged newsrooms to adopt clear editorial guidelines, avoid dramatic headlines, exclude specific details, replace speculation with verified, minimal facts, and frame suicide not as an end but as a preventable tragedy.
GNA
Edited by Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo/Linda Asante Agyei