By Mithran Samuel
The Press Complaints Commission has struck a blow for responsible media coverage of mental health with a ruling on a piece by the Daily Sport on suicide.
The "Top yourself 10", published in May, gave a list of the ten most prevalent suicide destinations in the country.
The piece sparked a complaint by the Choose Life campaign in Scotland - set up by the Scottish government to tackle and prevent suicide - which said the newspaper had "provided unnecessary detail which might encourage vulnerable people to visit the places shown and take their own lives".
The paper countered that the article was a fair and balanced report in the public interest, based on information in the public domain.
However, the PCC upheld the complaint with reference to clause 5 (ii) of its code of practice which states that "when reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used" in order to discourage copycat cases.
It is clear that the code does not prohibit reporting on the general subject of suicides or particular cases in the context of a newsworthy event, such as an inquest, the PCC said.
However, it added: "The problem with this case was that it was an entirely gratuitous guide to where individuals have killed themselves, and explicitly pointed out to people that there were a number of options about how and where to attempt suicide. This was clearly excessive in the context. The commission was also concerned that the light-hearted presentation of the piece - which referred, for instance, to one bridge as being a "well-known favourite for Britain's top-yourself tourists" - may have glamorised suicide in the eyes of some readers."