Samaritans urges college to remove student film from YouTube

05 Jul 2013 News

A campaign film that appeared to have been created for the Samaritans and has been viewed by more than 18,000 people, contravenes the Samaritans’ media guidelines, the charity advises, by portraying a suicide attempt.

A campaign film that appeared to have been created for the Samaritans and has been viewed by more than 18,000 people, contravenes the Samaritans’ media guidelines, the charity advises, by portraying a suicide attempt.

Produced by students at the Central St Martins School and published on YouTube in May, the film uses the charity’s branding and features the charity's UK phone number. Last week an online advertising news site reported on the ‘campaign’ as being by the Samaritans, but the charity has told civilsociety.co.uk it had nothing to do with the film and has asked the college to take it off YouTube.

Until this morning, the disclaimer on the YouTube video was buried at the end of the text description, so to know that the film was not an official campaign ad, users had to click the “show more” button.

Chantel Scherer-Reid, head of communications at Samaritans, said: “While we recognise that this film was produced with the best of intentions, and that the production values were very high. There are a number of other issues we need to consider, not least the risks attached to the portrayal of a suicide in the media and encouraging ‘copycat’ behaviour among vulnerable people.”

The charity’s 20-page media guidelines document is freely available on its website explaining appropriate phrases and urging members of the media to refrain from giving out “technical details” related to suicide.

Scherer-Reid added: “We are in contact with the college and have asked them to remove the clip from YouTube.”

The film has been uploaded to the student's account, not a college account. 

Central St Martins School has not yet responded to enquiries.

 

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