Topic Tuesday **closed**: The media and mental health

To be honest this is slowly changing in Australia. As compared to some of the tabloid and sensational journalism of the US and UK when it comes to mental illness and suicide reporting, Australian journalists are on the whole quite responsible.

If they do get it wrong from time to time they are very open to changing their reporting style for the future, this is certainly my experience in StigmaWatch.

I think it’s important to keep the channels of communication between people with a mental illness and journalists as open as possible, as journalists are the conduit for getting information about mental illness to the wider public.

Unfortunately journalists are human too, there are some that are better at their job than others, so mistakes do occur. Journalists might be working on 4-5 stories a day on differing topics so you can imagine, with time constraints and the pressure to deliver on-time, it’s impossible for journalists to be mental illness experts. They rely on the information they are given, as to what they report. Roles where a journalist is dedicated to say-health reporting, are becoming rarer and rarer so the opportunity to specialise in mental health isn’t there. This is a reality of the current media landscape.

Where there is glamourisation I think it's mostly due to the lack of knowledge or inexperience of the journalist.

I agree with @Jo, the standards have improved. I didn't see The Verdict, but from what you're saying it sounds like we still got some way to go.

What was your/ people's thoughts about Mental Health Week and the ABC's Mental As? Was than anything that you liked/disliked?

@Former-Member do you think intiatives like the ABC's Mental As helps to combat stigma? Why? Why not? What do you think could be done differently to impove (sorry lots of questions!)

Mark Latham is a bit of a serial offender when it comes to glib comments about mental illness @Jo he's been reported to StigmaWatch quite a few times. It's unfortunate that his unfounded and not very factual views get air time.

So, from what I have read there is a growing concern that the increase in depiction of mentally ill characters on scripted TV, combined with the 'coming out' of many celebrities has caused claiming to be mentally ill to become 'trendy', sort of on par with edgey portrayals of drug addiction.

The concern is that this both trivialises the lived experience of those with mental illness and draws impressionable folks to emulate/fake/claim to have mental illness themselves from no more than say an online quiz.

It seems that the media has gone from mental illness being a no-go zone, or only shown in terms of ghoulish tragedy (such as any possible link in an event like a mass shooting), and has swung to the other extreme - both by massively overgeneralising a character or celebrities traits as a 'typical' diagnosis (often by inference rather than outright statement), portraying their exceptional lives that either exist in spite of or actually enhanced by their condition.... frequently showing those with mental illness at either extremes of dysfunction (think celeb's here), or with a sort of comedic bent 'Oh that Monk, he is so quirky!' that makes very very light of conditions that real people struggle with.

Even in Felicity's Mental Mission (about raisiong awareness of mental illness) there was a bit of 'Hey being mentally ill means you are more creative', and a couple of references to 'No I REALLy have an illness I am not just trying to be cool' type stuff.

I think that sometimes in the media that mental health issues are trivialised and mocked by their portrayal of the person experiencing the mental illness and the language that is used to describe the person suffering the mental illness. The use of language and the tone in which it is delivered can often convey far more than intended and offend people. Mental health is a matter which needs to be taken more seriously by the media.

I think you've touched on the very difficulty most journalists and scriptwriters face @chookmojo how do you portray the full spectrum of mental illness when no two experiences are the same?

It's true, some people find mental illness a source of creativity, some people do recover, but this is not everyone's experience.

What I think needs stressing @Sienna is that not all journalists are the same when it comes to this. I think most journalists take it extremely seriously but they might not be aware that the language they are using is incorrect. This type of language is usually a result of common stereotypes and previous use of language in society.

Take the use of the word "committed" for example, this is actually a result of historically the act of taking of one's life, being a crime, either morally or legally in our culture in the past. Most journalist don't want to offend and certainly don't think that suicide is a crime but it's almost a force of habit to say it.

I very much agree - there are journalists who report on these matters sensitively and respectfully. Unfortunately some journalists still have room for improvement.

@chookmojo and @Former-Member raise some great points. MH is often trivialised, whether it's by people 'putting it down' as @Jo mentioned, or through depicting glamourised depictions of MI. I think it can take away from the reality of the lived experiences of the normal everyday people. I get that media outlets may be trying to portray that MI can affect anyone, but I also question if it is an experience that people with MI can relate to. What do other think?

I fee like I see the same narratives repeated over and over again on the news. For example, there are often stories about the violently mentally ill or the super hero/star that has a mental illness. Why is this? Is it possible to change this?