Since I started blogging about LGBTs in 2008 one of the many things which infuriates me about LGBT blogs and websites is when someone commits suicide and there will be post after post of followup even if there is nothing new to add to the sad story other than to promote the cause(s) of the event in which a person takes their life which comes back to gay bullying and often now to promote The Trevor Project and the It Gets Better campaign.There is such a thing in the real world of journalism as followup but not as it is seen in the so-called world of Citizen Journalists.
Followup to a story is to add new information not used as a means to promote groups, organizations or ideas no matter how well intentioned those three are intended to be.
Many will cry out that we need to do this to keep in the forefront suicide because of bullying as the story isn't continued in the mainstream press.
That's because if there is nothing more beyond the initial story and followup if warranted, the story ends. To keep the story continuing when there is nothing more to add which LGBT blogs and websites do is only singing to the choir, which I'm sure there is more than one member of that choir which gets tired of the brow beating which this repetition is.
This writer is of the opinion that all the continued postings really do nothing other than to get readers to the respective blogs/websites to build readership and perhaps have someone click on an advertisement.
The continuation of one of the latest poor souls can be found at Gay Voices at Huff Post which is primarily a copy/paste of another LGBT news website in which a contributor after going to one of several memorial services offers up portions of a suicide note. That the contributor went to the memorial service as an individual is fine, to report on the service is acceptable but to go and offer up portions of a suicide note and in turn "sensationalize" this "followup story" as both Gay Voices and the originating website does goes well beyond basic respect for the deceased and in my opinion is reprehensible.
Is it really necessary to publish a suicide note either in part or whole which will only provide morbid curiosity for many and making the acquisition of the note newsworthy as being deemed "exclusively". This is bottom feeding yellow journalism of the worse kind and to what end, to be able to explain how and why an individual killed himself. That was apparent in the initial reporting of the sad event.
To me the contributor who wrote the original story which Gay Voices uses is akin to a vulture flying over a dead body to see how much more can be picked from the bones and to whom I have about as much respect for as ambulance chasing attorneys, paparazzi and those journalists and others engulfed in the "black eye" currently being given to the news media in the UK.
As one who had to live through the nightmare of a dead family member who committed suicide and was then "brutalized" by the media in New York City because of his "celebrity" I ask the contributor and others where is the compassion and decency for family and friends of the deceased ?
Bloggers and contributors who write or copy/paste to keep a sad event ongoing so that the well intended which are supposed to help others in their most desperate times can be promoted when in fact in many instances, particularly in this case, are an illusion of hope and are proved to be dismal failures.
With all the coverage which these blogs and websites offer, which some in a despondent frame of mind may look upon as a form of celebrity after the fact, it begs the question, does that contribute to more suicides ?
To report or not to when it comes to suicide is one of editorial dictate and journalistic conscience.
This journalist because of journalistic conscience can say there is no blood on my hands.
