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Corporate Media Start to Report on Queer Teen Suicide

Posted by libhom Monday, October 04, 2010

Our society is reticent about discussing suicide in general. However, there are two specific forms of suicide which have gotten very little discussion in corporate media outlets, being blocked out even more than suicide in general. One of them is the high suicide rates of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. This censorship is due to corporate media outlets trying to keep as many people supporting these pointless wars as possible and to keep potential military recruits from finding out what they might be getting themselves into.

The other form of suicide that is especially censored is queer teen suicide. This has been motivated by prejudice. That may be changing.

A Rutgers student was outed sensationally by having video of him having sex with a man posted on the Internet. He killed himself. This story was so bizarre and extreme that it broke a media taboo. Other news stories of teenagers killing themselves after being bullied in school have surfaced.

This is long overdue. Ellen DeGeneres has eloquently responded to this. What she said is more than worth listening too.



The Trevor Project has been working on the issue of queer teen suicide for over a decade. Hopefully, the recent publicity on this concern will cause more people to take note and take action.

Hopefully, the coverage and interest of suicides and bullying of queer youth in the corporate media will not be a "flavor of the month" story to be dropped when the next trend comes along. I also hope that suicide among veterans gets the attention that issue deserves too.

 

4 comments

  1. Ahab Says:
  2. Suicides among soldiers AND LGBT youth are heartbreaking, and it's high time that our society confronted the roots of these tragedies.

     
  3. Jonny Gray Says:
  4. I always wondered how many LGBT/Q suicides it would take before the mainstream acknowledged the problem. I guess now we know.

    Or, as you say, maybe it isn't quantity but the nature of one particular case. Sadly, the epidemic of LGBT/Q suicides seems to have piggy-backed on the media's love of a good reality tv and invasion of privacy story, the role of new media almost eclipsing the sexuality issue. But however it got on the news, it is finally drawing larger attention to a BIG problem, and one that is only growing (when it should be in decline).

     
  5. Terrible situation!! Glad Ellen is speaking up... I haven't watched lately, but I'll bet Rachel has tackled it too...

     
  6. this problem is an epidemic - and with most of the media still filled with love of war and prejudice - it takes entertainment talk shows to really speak out about this.

    then the assholes in cable start in - since i dont ever watch fox - somehow i bet they barely even mention the tragedy at rutgers.

     

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