We’ve reported on the suicides of two Indianapolis Police Department officers over the past several weeks.
The first story prompted a reader to ask about our policy concerning the coverage of suicides.
Specifically, John L. Johantges wanted to know why we did not write about a neighbor who committed suicide by hanging himself from a carport in a Northside apartment complex.
It was a good question. Deciding how to handle suicides is a delicate situation for journalists. Our policy is consistent with that of most other newspapers.
Generally, we view a suicide as a personal and private event. Usually we don’t write a news story, and coverage of the person’s death is limited to an obituary in which the cause of death is not noted.
However, there are exceptions, in which we will cover a suicide as news:
- If the deceased is a public figure.
- If the person takes his or her life in a public place or in the presence of other people.
- If there are any allegations of foul play.
In both police suicides, the first two points came into play.
Police officers, as public safety officials, are public figures.
In the first case, on June 29, Thomas R. Wiseman shot himself in his patrol car behind IPD South District headquarters, where he worked. That story appeared on the front of the City/ State section.
In the death reported on Monday’s front page, off-duty policeman Jodie P. Webb shot himself in the middle of a street in the presence of his wife and his child. In the same block, two churches were in the midst of Sunday services.
Worshipers had to leave one church by a side door in the aftermath of the shooting.
And, as our Monday story pointed out, the suicide rate among police officers is twice as high as that of the population at large.
All those elements made the two police suicides newsworthy.
Late jazz
During the past week, a handful of readers called to complain about our lack of coverage of the Indy Jazz Fest.
That was a bit surprising. By my count, we carried 11 stories and reviews during the weeklong event.
When we noticed that at least half of the calls were from the Bloomington area, we figured out what happened.
Because of deadline constraints, most of the reviews appeared only in our City Edition.
Our State Edition, which is delivered to readers outside the nine-county metropolitan area, has to be put to bed by 11 p.m.
Music critic David Lindquist explains that at most shows, the headliners begin performing about 9:30 p.m. and continue until 11 or so.
Lindquist said he usually starts writing his reviews about 10:40 p.m., with his deadline at 11:30 p.m.
Just as with late sporting events, we would like to get reviews of evening concerts and theater performances into all our editions. But it’s just not possible if we are to get the paper delivered in our outlying circulation areas on time.
What we should have done was run those late reviews in the next day’s State Edition. Better late than never.
