Why you didn’t see Post Bulletin footage of a suicide attempt

Jeff Pieters, editor of the Rochester Post Bulletin, explains.

As humans in society, we have an interest in our fellow people, the different ways they live their lives, the things that they achieve, and the fates that sometimes befall them. … 

But when there is a cost to the subject, we have to weigh that against the public’s desire to know. … Should the sight of someone having their worst day – a mental health breakdown on a highway bridge in Rochester – be put on display to thousands of pairs of eyes? 

And … sometimes it’s more than the individual who bears the cost of the stigma and shame. There’s so little awareness of the impact on families … the hidden, invisible and innocent victims.