Suicide and the passive voice

In the last few years, the way journalists write about suicide has changed greatly. We now say that people "died by suicide" instead of "committed suicide." Other measures are taken to try to prevent glamorizing suicide, blame the person who died, or to inadvertently encourage copycats.

This is all generally to the good, and well-intentioned. (I don't love all the guidelines, which urge journalists to avoid describing "personal details" about people who have died in favor of keeping the information general, because that renders an individual somewhat faceless, IMHO.) A story in the New York Times demonstrates a complication with the approach: It can obscure clarity.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

AMSTERDAM — One hundred and thirty years ago, Vincent van Gogh awoke in his room at an inn in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and went out, as he usually did, with a canvas to paint. That night, he returned to the inn with a fatal gunshot wound. He died two days later, on July 29, 1890.

Scholars have long speculated about the sequence of events on the day of the shooting, and now Wouter van der Veen, a researcher in France, says he has discovered a large piece of the puzzle: the precise location where van Gogh created his final painting, “Tree Roots.” The finding could help to better understand how the artist spent his final day of work.

Now: If you know anything about art history, you know that van Gogh died by his own hand. The opening paragraphs obscure that fact. You know he was shot. You don't know who!

More than a dozen paragraphs go by before clarity is offered:

There has long been debate about which painting was van Gogh’s last work, because he tended not to date his paintings. Many people believe it was “Wheatfield With Crows,” because Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic “Lust for Life” depicts van Gogh, played by Kirk Douglas, painting that work as he goes mad, just before killing himself.

This is a story in which van Gogh's death is a critical element: Finding out where the painting originated probably isn't a big NYT story if not for the fact of his death. But it feels like that critical element is the object of hide-and-seek in this story. I suspect the recent conventions on how to write about suicide shaped this approach. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I don't mean to be insensitive. I would like to figure out a way forward that is sensitive and yet doesn't create confusion instead of clarity. Any ideas out there?