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Development of the PRINTQUAL-Web Tool for Assessing the Quality of Online News Reporting of Suicide

Ruby Rose Jarvis Orcid Logo, Agatha Anet Alves Orcid Logo, Kangning Zheng, Monica Hawley, Amanda Marchant Orcid Logo, Keith Hawton Orcid Logo, Ann John Orcid Logo, Alexandra Pitman Orcid Logo

Crisis

Swansea University Authors: Amanda Marchant Orcid Logo, Ann John Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1027/0227-5910/a001005

Abstract

Background: Suicide prevention strategies internationally recommend promoting responsible media reporting of suicide to reduce negative impacts on population suicides. Existing tools to assess the quality of suicide reporting do not capture specific harmful features of the online setting. We aimed t...

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Published in: Crisis
ISSN: 0227-5910 2151-2396
Published: Hogrefe Publishing Group 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69076
Abstract: Background: Suicide prevention strategies internationally recommend promoting responsible media reporting of suicide to reduce negative impacts on population suicides. Existing tools to assess the quality of suicide reporting do not capture specific harmful features of the online setting. We aimed to adapt PRINTQUAL, a tool for assessing newspaper reporting of suicide, for online news reports. Methods: We identified all online news reports about the 2020 suicide of a British female television celebrity over a 14-month period and used content analysis to identify features of poor-quality and good-quality reporting based on media guidelines on suicide reporting. We gained expert consensus on items to include negative/poor-quality and positive/good-quality subscales for the new tool: PRINTQUAL-web. Weightings were calculated using an expert judgement ranking exercise. Results: Content analysis of 342 online articles published from 15/02/20 to 05/04/21 identified 18 items for a proposed negative/poor-quality subscale and four items for a positive/good-quality subscale, gaining consensus on inclusion/exclusion and weightings, and rescaling scores for easier interpretation. Limitations: PRINTQUAL-web does not account for article prominence or quantitative reach (e.g., views or circulation) and relies on a binary agree/disagree rating which may not capture nuance. Conclusions: The PRINTQUAL-web and PRINTQUAL tools assess the quality of online and print reporting of suicide, respectively, with rescaling permitting score comparisons across different corpora of reporting.
Keywords: suicide, journalism, celebrity, media, PRINTQUAL
College: Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Funders: We are grateful to the RCPsych Faculty of General Adult Psychiatry for a grant to AP for this work, funding access to the Samaritans Media Advisory Service database and the input of lived experience experts. Open access publication enabled by University College London, UK.

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