WE ARE SURROUNDED the media… it’s everywhere we turn, on your phone, in your car, on your computer, at home; there is simply no escaping it.
Its immediate nature makes it compelling, even addictive. How many of you reading this look at your smart phone first thing in the morning even before you ask yourself how you are feeling or even before you turn to your partner and ask them how they are?
The media we consume impacts on our mood, self-image, self-worth even on our outlook on life. As someone who entered the Irish media world at the exact time I took up my quest to become self-aware I have been acutely aware of its impact on our mental health. This has prompted me to wonder if the media should be more proactive in minding the mental health of the public, especially when reporting on suicide and mental health stories.
According to Headline, Ireland’s national media monitoring programme whose aim is to promote responsible and accurate coverage of mental health and suicide related issues, research makes a strong case for responsible reporting as the idea of suggestion influencing suicide is not new.
Some cite the banning of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther as the beginning of the “copycat suicide” discussion. The 18th century novel allegedly resulted in a number of suicides by the same method as the main character. More than a century later, it was reported that in August 1962 the month in which Marilyn Monroe died by suicide, there was a 12 per cent increase in suicides recorded in the US.
This is in direct contrast to the impact of the suicide of Kurt Cobain 32 years later. In this case, the Seattle Crisis Clinic worked with the media to reduce romanticised coverage of his death and no increase in suicides was recorded.
The media industry in Ireland is just beginning to accept the case for responsible reporting and as mental health stories are permeating all corners of the media; shouldn’t all media personnel have an awareness of their own mental health, what it is, how to look after it so as to report on it responsibly?
However, journalists and broadcasters do not have official guidelines from the Press Council of Ireland or the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland when it comes to reporting on suicide and mental health so how can the media change?
As a trainer I thought the only way to address this is by asking the people who are doing the reporting to attend mental health awareness training. So I teamed up with See Change, Caroline McGuigan CEO and Founder of Suicide or Survive, and Headline and we delivered workshops to the Newstalk 106-108 team, exploring topics like:
The sessions were very well received and feedback from participants was extremely positive. One participant said this training should be mandatory to all media personnel while another felt it had equipped them with skills that would make them a better journalist. We are currently in the process of offering these workshops nationwide to all radio stations.
Soon after the training sessions, I was invited to attend an expert advisory meeting on reporting on suicide facilitated by Headline. The meeting was open to editors, journalists and broadcasters and it was meant as a brain storming session on how the media could be used to advance the conversation of mental health in Ireland.
There was another broadcaster present from another station who said that the media had gone from not talking about mental health to talking too much about it but many of the conversations were confusing and unhelpful to the listener. This according to the broadcaster was because there were too many organizations working in the area of mental health, too many helplines, GP’s were hit and miss and that the government was failing by not taking the lead on tackling this thorny issue. The broadcaster went on to say that the Irish mental health sector should get their act together and start working together.
Although this was an excellent observation on the mental health sector I also found that it highlighted how the media needs to change to help advance the conversation of mental health in Ireland. Once equipped with the necessary awareness and skills, journalists and broadcasters can report on mental health responsibly with the cautionary message that ultimately you are in charge and in the driver’s seat of your own mental health. Here are the options, helplines, supports services but ultimately you are the expert of your own mental health.
Finally, when it comes to who is responsible for improving the mental health of the nation, is it the GP’s, the mental health practitioners, the helplines, the support services, or is it the government? The answer for me is in keeping with my personal mantra – be the change! We all have an individual and collective responsibility for improving the mental health of our nation and this includes the media. What we say impacts on the mental health of our viewers, readers and listeners so we cannot afford to take the “it’s not my job approach” when it comes to the mental health of the nation.
Dil Wickremasinghe is a social justice and mental health broadcaster of Global Village, Newstalk 106-108 FM, Saturday 7-9pm and Training Director with Insight Matters – Inspiring change in self and society through personal development, psychotherapy and counselling.
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