THE new chairman of the Education Commission yesterday urged the media to be more ''considerate'' to victims and readers in reporting child suicide cases.
Professor Rosie Young Tse-tse said all media reports were highly influential, citing a 1988 case in which a student at Hongkong University committed suicide after her full name was published following a theft case.
The vice chairman of the Newspaper Society of Hongkong, Mr Paul Hui Hau-tung, who is general manager of Ming Pao, said he would raise the reporting of student suicide at the group's next meeting in February.
''The recent student suicides are alarming and I will ask members to consider student suicide coverage, how to discourage youngsters from committing suicide, and to give them a different attitude,'' he said.
Mr Hui said he was not sure whether emphasising student suicides through prominent placement, sensational treatment or inclusion of personal details such as names and photographs glorified suicide victims or encouraged copycat suicides.
A visiting American adviser to the Education Department, Ms Diana Ryerson, suggested last year that the Hongkong media take a lead from some American newspapers which had come to a mutual agreement not to include names or photographs or give front-page treatment to suicide cases.