Is it necessary to keep a tally?

By: Jessica Hartgers

Many of you may have heard of the most recent suicide at Southeast Polk High School. You probably heard that it was another teenage boy who committed suicide and he is the fourth student to do so in the last seven months.

My problem with the way journalists are reporting this subject is that they all seem to be keeping a tally to the number of students to commit this act. Journalists seem to be focusing on the total number and the timeline that things have occurred, focusing on the first and the latest.

I know the timeline and number of students is just a fact of the case, but is it necessary to keep bringing the previous cases up in each news story. In a way the journalists are making readers relive each death.

Journalists need to leave previous suicides out of the story.