ninemsn article on Owen Wilson's suicide attempt

ISSUE 1
I found Owen Wilson's recently reported, albeit 'alleged', suicide attempt coincidental to guest lectures presented to Journalism students over the past two weeks.

An unfortunate coincidence at that.

Below is a link to an article published on the ninemsn website on Tuesday 28 August 2007.

My reason for adding this link is in fact not directly related to the suicide.

I noticed the journalist who wrote the article, 'ninemsn staff and wires', commented on the way Samuel. L. Jackson questioned the paparazzi.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=290296

Obviously some of the ninemsn staff have not had the advantage of being taught by our one and only Paul Scott! Otherwise they would not have commented that Jackson "sarcastically asked" a question!

ISSUE 2
Specifically relating to our recent guest lectures, I would like to make a couple of comments in reference to the link added below:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=289959

As journalists, when reporting a suicide it is advised we do not explicitly disclose the method of suicide.

If it needs to be included, it should be done so in non-explicit terms.

When reading the article, I was just wondering to what extent the journalist had to report the method of suicide?

"...wrists were superficially slashed" - is that too explicit? If the article simply stated he had taken an overdose of pills (as it does in fact say), would they be lying by not mentioning the wrist slashing?

As an inquisitive person, the first question I would ask is "how did they do it?" - especially if those details have not been included.

The article does conform with the expectations of reporting a suicide/mental health story by adding the contact details of Lifeline at the end of the story.

This of course is just my opinion and application of what has been learnt over the past two weeks from interesting and informative lectures.