MMMM #448 -- Do news stories about suicides cause more suicides?

   Perhaps.

• Here a study on this question: do newspaper stories about suicide prompt copycat suicides?

     The conclusion of the study is yes, though the same is not true for TV News for some reason. And if the newspaper story treats the death as a negative, the effect is lessened.

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•   A columnist at the website Reason.com has written a compelling piece about an FCC ruling that a radio station's "news stories" weren't news at all.

     He criticizes the FCC by explaining that broadcasters air biased stories all the time, like the "Video News Releases" produced by companies and aired by some stations intact, without any disclaimer (I know of one station in Montgomery that has done so, and not one of those at ANN).

   But he acts as if the airing of those "VNR's" went unchallenged, and that's not true. Legitimate broadcast journalists would never air that crap, nor would they take a printed news release and republish it as if it were an actual news story. At least most stations would not. He writes

... radio and TV stations have a long history of transmitting "audio news releases" and "video news releases" designed by PR firms to promote a product (or, in many cases, to promote a government policy). These ads "are formatted and presented just like a commercial television news segment, often with a generic narration," Anderson writes, and stations frequently add to the disguise "by having a local reporter voice the story and us[ing] their own on-screen graphics." In a small handful of cases, the commission has fined stations for airing such reports without sponsorship announcements, but in those orders "the FCC made no determinations on the news value of video news releases themselves.

     I have to disagree. This is NOT a "frequent" activity, but an aberration that is met with criticism when it occurs. Here's a list of potential VNR used as "real news". 

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     And finally, there's this very old TV camera.

A Vinten Model H 35mm film camera, England, c. 1936, believed to have been used in John Logie Baird's television studio at Alexander Palace.

 And read how it "worked"

In 1936 Baird used a system called the 'Intermediate Film Technique'. A modified film camera was used to shoot scenes in the studio. The film was fed through a hole in the bottom of the camera into tanks containing developer, fixer and then water. Whilst still underwater the developed film was then scanned by a special Nipkow disc to convert it into a television picture. 

The system was terribly unreliable and was dropped after 3 months. 

{source: http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk}

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of www.timlennox.com]