People fall. Sometimes they are pushed, other times they go too close to the edge.
Sometimes they jump.
We don’t know what happened to Liam Payne, other than that he was on a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, then he was on the ground below. And at 31, he is dead.
The news came late Wednesday, and like so many shocking celebrity revelations before it, many learned about it from gossip website TMZ. But fans who clicked on an alert, a tweet or even a link shared via text, were shocked to see a cropped image of Payne’s lifeless body that was included alongside TMZ’s reporting on the One Direction singer’s death. The site later took the image down.
No matter how he died, we didn’t need to see photos.
People were stunned by the graphic image, but perhaps we shouldn’t be. After all, this is the same outlet that was scolded by police at the scene of Kobe Bryant’s death, the outlet that mangled the news of Tom Petty’s death and shared the grainy, suspiciously obtained footage of Solange and Jay-Z’s infamous elevator fight. The Associated Press has standards when it comes to reporting on death − guidelines about the rare occasions when it’s OK to include graphic images and details − at least they’re supposed to. But on this night, according to an early story from AP, we know the sound made when his body hit the ground. They described it.
Liam Payne performs during the TAB Everest Race Day at Royal Randwick Racecourse on Oct. 13, 2018, in Sydney, Australia.
HANNA LASSEN, GETTY IMAGES FOR THE ATC
Liam Payne’s family mourns One Direction star dies at 31: ‘Heartbroken’
How much do we have the right to know the details when someone dies? What about if that person killed themselves rather than was killed by someone else? What if it was an accident or they were impaired by drugs or alcohol?
What if that person was famous?
Do we have the right to know what singer Naomi Judd’s daughter told police when she found her mom after a suicide attempt? Judd later died, and her daughters sued to keep those conversations private.
What if it was your mother?
In 2012, it was mine.
The day after my sweet mom, a grandma to eight and retired nurse, jumped into the Grand Canyon, I read about it in my hometown newspaper. It was under the Most Read tab on the newspaper’s homepage: Woman Who Died at Canyon Id’d.
We are taught that details matter in telling stories. An early journalism lesson: Get the dog’s name. It helps you connect, care, and even understand. But how much do we need to know? And if we do know, how much do we as the media need to share?
I’ve thought a lot about it in the years since my mom died. I’ve interviewed psychologists and historians, professors and doctors.
Many researchers and psychologists will say that destigmatizing suicide can lead to fewer deaths, that talking about it, writing about it, making the discussion of mental health issues a part of our conversation, will help. Yet, we are talking about it more than ever before, and the national suicide rate has steadily risen over the past two decades.
