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| quote: | Originally posted by m2j
what really pisses me off is that they put ads asking people not to litter on the subway yet they remove ALL the trash cans on the subway platform... do they really expect people to walk all the way upstairs, and risk missing their train to throw away trash? WTF. |
They did that because of the perceived terrorist threat of being able to put a bomb in a trash can and nobody would know.
...and regarding suicides, I found this link after reading about a suicide on the TTC last week on Craigslist
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/18...s/feature2.html
Suicide cover-up
Dailies leave troubled communities in the lurch when they suppress news for our own good
By ALEC SCOTT
She wanted to fall halfway between the wheels of the front truck, which was drawing level with her, but the little red handbag which she began to take off her arm delayed her, and then it was too late. 'Where am I? What am I doing? Why?'"
So Leo Tolstoy describes the suicide of his heroine, Anna Karenina, under the wheels of a train. It remains the quintessential example of a romanticized suicide, right down to the little red handbag.
Just printing this quote is irresponsible, according to those who say all media coverage of suicides, particularly coverage that glorifies the suicide, tempts susceptible readers to choose death.
That's the reasoning behind newspapers' refusal to report on suicides, which are relegated to the same category as bomb threats -- too numerous to be news and too encouraging of antisocial behaviour.
Suicide news
Journalistic ethics professors justify this widespread self-censorship by saying it protects the privacy of bereaved family and prevents copycat suicides.
In fact, social science research on copycat suicides is very mixed. The risk of not covering suicides at all is that brewing social problems get ignored.
We only know about the suicide on Sunday night of Jeyabalan Balasingam because he held his three-year-old son as he jumped in front of the train as it entered Victoria Park subway station. That, as the Toronto Star has mentioned slavishly in each story on the incident, made it a murder, and therefore news.
But what's lost when the media refusal to report on suicides, of which there are 250 in Toronto each year, not counting the many attempts that for one reason or another are not successful? More than 20 people try to commit suicide each year by throwing themselves in front of TTC trains, and between 11 and 16 have died in each of the last few years, according to the provincial coroner's office.
When so many people are prepared to end their lives, isn't there a health story? And if, as some experts suggest, there is a disproportionate number of suicides among minority communities, isn't there something to talk about?
Not according to TTC spokesperson Marilyn Bolton, who gives me a free seminar on the differences between responsible and irresponsible journalism. In her view, reporters who publicize suicides bear the heavy moral burden of potentially causing more self-inflicted deaths by influencing others to take their own lives.
In reference to the front-page stories in each of the city's four dailies this week on the Balasingam murder-suicide, Bolton fumes, "Reporting on suicides causes more suicides. Psychiatrists in this field will tell you that. I would hate to be the member of the community who causes people to kill themselves. How can the media face themselves?"
Even the editor-in-chief of the Toronto Sun -- where violence and death are the specialty -- withers under such outrage. "Don't forget, this was a murder- suicide," Mike Strobel says defensively. "That's why we ran it. We'll generally only run a story if there is some other compelling reason to do so."
Many social scientists are convinced press presentation can alter behaviour. "The media's sensationalism can have a dramatic effect," says Anton Lenars, a Windsor-based psychiatrist who curates a large collection of suicide notes.
"Through repetitive coverage of the same event, they can create the sense that this is a normal occurrence. If they're covering a celebrity suicide, like Kurt Cobain's, for instance, it can become glamourized." Several teen suicides in Canada were linked to the self-inflicted death of grunge-rocker Cobain in 1994.
Lenars relies on one Vienna study that found that the number of subway suicides dropped by 80 per cent in the year after media outlets changed their coverage of such deaths.
But the media in this study were urged to alter their coverage, not drop it altogether. They tried not to romanticize or simplify the suicide's motives and they left out photos of grieving relatives, took stories off the front page and removed the word "suicide'' from headlines.
The Toronto coverage of the Balansingam tragedy followed none of these guidelines and shows we have the worst of both worlds -- periods of complete silence followed by spates of sensational blitz coverage. The story made the front pages and sported prominent headlines: "Father drags son to death in subway suicide,'' screamed the Star.
Not all social scientists even agree with these findings, though. University of Calgary professor Sebastian Littman looked at coverage of subway suicides in Toronto in the 70s and found no link between such suicides and media coverage.
And, he argues, coverage may discourage certain readers from taking their lives.
"The influence that publicity has on behaviour may not necessarily have been in the direction of imitation but in the direction of avoidance or prevention. After all, public education measures on issues such as birth control, smoking and alcohol abuse are meant to decrease undesirable behaviour patterns rather than incite people toward imitation."
Critics of the media-blackout strategy say it means important social issues are left to fester. Barry Boyack of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada says coverage can be important because it sparks discussion of suicide prevention.
"Suicide is a distasteful topic,'' Boyack says. "But more than 40 per cent of schizophrenia sufferers attempt suicide at one time or another, and 10 per cent succeed. This is something we need to deal with as a society, but it only reaches the agenda when it hits the headlines."
High toll
Lost in news censorship of suicide is the especially high toll it takes on minorities. Morton Beiser, professor of cultural pluralism and health at the University of Toronto, says, "A suicide can crystallize a particular problem. In (the Balasingam case), the Tamil community is one of several in Toronto that have come under a lot of pressure.
"Many Tamils are recently arrived from a war in Sri Lanka and are here as refugees. They don't have networks. And they might also not think of going for help for depression or anxiety.''
Beiser has also worked with South Asian, Ethiopian and Somali refugees and finds that many face similar pressures in adjusting to Canada from war-torn home environments. Though no figures are available, Beiser says Tamil community leaders have been concerned for at least four years about suicide rates in their community.
Says Rex Edward of the Tamil Services Society, resources are needed to safeguard people's lives. "Clinics should be opened to address this issue.''
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"In a world of illusion you only see what you feel"
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I wonder what the reason is this time?
