Heavy Toll Analysis

Heavy Toll is a show by Tabitha Konstantine in which it deals with the subject of suicide. In this podcast, we learn that a train conductor had witnessed a suicide. ‘78% of all rail fatalities are suicide’ and there were ‘238 suicides in 2012’ (Mona Chalabi, The Guardian, 2013.) This shows that it is a topic that needs to be talked about as these statistics are shocking to the audience.

Konstantine earned a gold award from this show as it was noticed by the Best Student Radio Feature. This piece was incredibly raw and hard hitting as there was not a lot going on except just the story which shows that it is an important issue and does not need anything else to broadcast its severity. This may relate to the listener as suicide is a common issue within some people’s lives as this may allow the audience to relate if they have had a family member lost to suicide.

Overall, the show was very emotional and deep as it made me think about what people go through and how things like this have an impact on people’s lives.

References:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/sep/11/uk-rail-suicides-decade-data