The Australian Press Council, long derided as the publishers’ poodle, and certainly to date one of Australia’s lowest-profile industry self-regulation bodies, has begun to pluck and talk up the fruits of its reform process with the release today of a new standard on the reporting of suicide.

It is the first of a few new standards . Next cab off the rank will be a standard dealing with how reporters should represent themselves when trying to gain access to hospitals and nursing homes.

As reported in Crikey previously, the council took a big hit in 2009 when newspaper publishers cut its funding, apparently in the belief that their shiny new lobby group, the Right to Know Coalition, could do everything the council aspired to do, other than the adjudication of complaints from the public.

But that crisis seemed to put steel in the backbone of the public members of the council, who voted in social activist and academic Julian Disney as the new chair. He began a softly, softly process of reform, successfully negotiating a restoration of the funding. He has been working behind the scenes to improve council processes, before seeking to raise its profile.

The council was thrust into the spotlight a couple of weeks ago when News Limited CEO John Hartigan, seeking to distance local newspapers from the stench from the United Kingdom News of the World crisis, appealed to the Press Council to help him set up the independent oversight process for News Limited’s  internal audit of editorial expenses.

Former Australian Press Council chair Ken McKinnon must have felt vindicated by the way the industry suddenly dusted off the Press Council’s role . He predicted in his departing spray against the industry in his 2009 annual report that an  industry lobby group such as the Right to Know coalition would never cut it when what was needed was some guarantee of independent safeguarding of the public interest. He was right.

In recent weeks the Press Council has appointed a new director of standards, Derek Wilding, and renovated its clunky old website. Meanwhile, the Standards Project, a three-year process that includes community and industry consultation leading to revision and writing of new standards, is under way with the suicide standard the first to be released.

The new suicide standard will lead to some changes in standard newsroom practice, where for years the general rule has been that suicides are not reported at all. In my experience, this leads to problems. Local newspaper reporters, for example, might want to report on the lack of safety measures at local suicide spots, but feel unable to do so.

Or when the trains are all held up because someone has thrown themselves on to the tracks, the reporting of the cause of delays can become very difficult indeed. Euphemisms such as “no suspicious circumstances” abound in the reporting of sudden death. Reporters know what that means. I doubt the public does, and the result is an under-reporting of a significant social issue.

But on the other hand, the public are entitled to be cynical about such reporter constraint when the suicide is of someone prominent — a pop star or a celebrity — when all the rules tend to get thrown out.

The new Press Council standard gives more guidance on how to think these things through. It seeks to balance public interest reporting of a significant social issue with the impact on vulnerable individuals.

It seems broadly in accord with the opinions of mental health professionals and others, as reported on Croakey last March,  including a strong cautionary notes from Barbara Hocking, director of SANE Australia in which she concludes “We all want the same outcome — more attention to this major public health concern so that vulnerable people are encouraged to seek help and that when they do, the services are there for them. Reporting suicide in the media is a balancing act … [but] simplistic suggestions to ‘talk more about suicide’ may inadvertently cause harm to people we are trying the hardest to protect”.

Disney told Crikey this morning that later this month the council will begin a by-invitation consultation process in four states — South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales — to scope what action is needed on standards. What standards do people want? What are the hot-button issues?

The challenge, Disney acknowledged, will be to get the standards known within newsrooms and readily understood by reporters. Meanwhile, the Press Council has, in its submission to the Convergence Review, called for a cross-media self-regulation body.

So, all good stuff, and a significant come back for the Press Council, which has been treated with, and sometimes deserved, contempt in the past. But there are limits. Or so far, in any case. In his departing spray, former chair Ken McKinnon called for a review of the accountability of newspaper editors.

Will that idea be picked up by the Press Council? In the current climate, it would be the ultimate hot potato.