The subject is suicides, but first a personal note: I’ve changed jobs at The Advertiser and added one word to my title that you might not have noticed if I didn’t point it out. That one word, however, has made all the difference in what I do.

I am now 24/7 Local News Editor — local is the new word. I now oversee most of the local news reporters and their stories, both online and in the paper. I help select and shape the local news coverage.

In my old job, I was more involved in national and foreign news, and in turning stories into reader-friendly packages of stories, pictures, headlines and graphics. I was at the end of the newsroom process. Now, I’m at the beginning.

Starting this new job has been overwhelming, hence the lack of blog posts. But it involves me in a new set of interesting issues. I’ll start with suicides.

We generally don’t report on suicides. We consider them a personal family tragedy that is difficult enough for relatives to handle without public scrutiny.

Suicides become news, in our opinion, when they seriously disrupt the lives of others or if the suicide involves a major public figure. Any type of murder-suicide is always covered, but if no one else is killed or injured, we are much less likely to report the story. That is generally the policy at most mainstream media.

A reader called to ask why we didn’t cover an apparent suicide Downtown on Monday where someone fell from an office building. The caller said many people saw the suicide or its aftermath.

We posted a brief item about the incident online under the headline: "Fall investigation closes Merchant Street." The story said a person fell onto the road, but we did not call it a suicide. No other person was hurt by the fall, so we did not to report it further, either online or in the paper. We covered the incident solely because it closed a busy road.

In some cases, the evidence of suicide is inconclusive: Was it an accidental drug overdose or intended? Was the fall accidental or not? Usually the police and medical examiner are reluctant to make such a conclusion quickly if evidence is lacking. Sometimes the medical examiner's verdict will come days after the incident. We weigh each case individually.

There is also the concern that publicity might encourage people contemplating suicide to take their lives in ways that is both dramatic and disruptive. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there is research that shows that suicide rates rise when there are more news stories about suicide or when a suicide is prominently reported.

Many newspeople would also be able to supply their own anecdotal evidence. For instance, soon after Cyrus Belt was thrown to his death from an H-1 overpass in January, there was at least two incidents where people fell from the same overpass. We reported the resulting traffic disruptions online but did not call them suicides.

Advertiser Editor Mark Platte wrote a column about this subject last year that goes into more detail. Read it here.

I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on our suicide policy.