MEDIAWATCH PROGRAMME

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (Irish Division), with funding from Pfizer Ireland, is undertaking a Mediawatch Campaign. Over the next 12 months, we will be analysing the media's attitudes towards mental health issues, by observing the way various media reports, depict and comment on mental illness.

If mental health issues are to be understood by the general public with knowledge and compassion, then the media must use the right words at the right time.

Nobody knows this better than people who have experienced mental illness and their families.

When people in the news are diagnosed with cancer or heart disease, nobody blames them. But when people are being treated for health problems involving the mind and emotions, the media may use negative and judgmental language.

To change attitudes we need to change the language.

Examples of Bad Media Practice.

People with mental disorders may be wrongly described as 'disturbed'.

Criminals may be labelled as 'nutters', 'maniacs' and 'psychos'.

Psychiatric units may be dubbed 'prisons' and 'asylums' and psychiatrists referred to as "shrinks".

Psychiatric illness may be sensationalised to make a 'juicy' headline or story.

Schizophrenia is often incorrectly used as a synonym for ambivalence.

One sports article was headlined, 'The schizophrenic blues leave fans in two minds'. The copy stated: "Tom Carr's men stretch to almost goofy extremes in their trademark schizophrenia". Such examples speak for themselves.

Suicide is a sensitive issue with a complex background in every tragic case, yet sometimes the media make simplistic causal connections between suicide and broken relationships, unemployment and exam stress.

A tabloid declared, "Exam kids Driven to Suicide", apparently unaware of risks of justifying suicide.

Help Us

By facing such prejudices head on, we hope to help change attitudes in the media and create a more positive view of mental health issues in the public consciousness.

If you see or hear any examples of mental health issues being portrayed in inappropriate ways in the news media, magazines, film, TV, soaps and sitcoms, please send them to us at mediawatch@irishpsychiatry.com Send us positive, insightful examples, too. Media-types tend to be labelled as insensitive, but they're not all bad, either.

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Copyright © 2000, Stephen Cummins Ltd.
Revised -- 09/05/00