Background: Sensible media reporting of suicide is one of the important prevention strategies. However, there has been no report assessing the quality of media reporting of suicide in Kashmir, India.

Aim: We aimed to assess the quality of newspaper reporting of suicide in Kashmir, India against the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting guidelines.

Methods: We searched the available contents in four English and two Urdu newspapers of Jammu Kashmir and assessed the adherence to the WHO media guidelines. We collected the reports between 25 January 2016 and 18 September 2020.

Results: A total of 152 reports were scrutinized. Almost all the reports mentioned the name of the person and the method of suicide (99.34%), occupation (85.53%) of the person. The life events were mentioned in 35.53% of the reports. Among the reports, 38.82% explained suicide on the basis of the mono-causality, and 3.95% mentioned suicide notes. Only 3.29% of reports had traced mental illness, and none of the reports mentioned evidence of substance abuse. Only three reports mentioned expert opinion, and none of the reports mentioned any research findings, statistics, prevention programs, educational information, and contact information for help.

Conclusion: The study revealed that news reports of suicide in Kashmir adhere poorly to the WHO media reporting guidelines. Identifying information of the deceased was explicitly mentioned in almost every report while almost none of the reports mentioned educational information.

背景：明智的媒体报道自杀是重要的预防策略之一。然而，还没有报告评估印度克什米尔地区媒体对自杀事件的报道质量。

目的：我们的目的是根据世界卫生组织 (WHO) 的报告指南评估印度克什米尔地区报纸对自杀事件的报道质量。

方法：我们在查谟克什米尔的四份英文报纸和两份乌尔都语报纸上搜索了可用内容，并评估了对世卫组织媒体指南的遵守情况。我们收集了 2016 年 1 月 25 日至 2020 年 9 月 18 日期间的报告。

结果：共审查了 152 份报告。几乎所有的报道都提到了这个人的姓名和自杀方式（99.34%）、职业（85.53%）。35.53%的报告提及生活事件。报告中，38.82%根据单因解释自杀，3.95%提及遗书。只有 3.29% 的报告追踪到了精神疾病，而且没有任何报告提到药物滥用的证据。只有三份报告提到了专家意见，并且没有一份报告提到任何研究结果、统计数据、预防计划、教育信息和寻求帮助的联系信息。

结论：该研究表明，克什米尔自杀的新闻报道不符合世界卫生组织的媒体报道指南。几乎每份报告都明确提及死者身份信息，而几乎没有报告提及教育信息。