To the editor:
I was disappointed to pick up last Thursday’s paper and see the leading headline about a child suicide. This may sell your paper, but it does not help the community at large.
Please get counseling yourselves on how to approach teenage (or any!) suicides in a community. I just moved from a community where this was a problem and the local media was quickly trained on how to not dramatically approach this.
Mental illness is an issue that needs to be addressed more widely and mental health and wellness needs to be cultivated in a community. I encourage your staff to get educated on suicide prevention and what that might look like.
And I send a prayer to those who are suffering right now, either directly or indirectly — as a result of this specific incident/article, a memory of one, or their own suicidal thoughts.
Katherine Gekas
Dublin