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The media does get it right
Posted Tuesday 10 July 2012
On 19 November, Mind will, for the nineteenth consecutive year (Edited - 7pm, 10 July) Including, present awards to those responsible for some of the best coverage of mental health issues across the range of UK media. If you've ever seen the tabloid headlines stigmatically screaming, “schizo runs amok!” or the film where the “mad” antagonist is portrayed as creepy, criminally deranged and out to destroy your very soul, then you'll know exactly why these awards are a necessity.
As most of those that experience mental distress, as well as their carers and those working in the arena will know, this is very rarely a realistic portrayal of individuals with a mental illness. Yet it is the one that has so far stubbornly prevailed. Should we sit back and blithely accept this situation? Er...of course not.
So, since 2007, the Mind Media Awards have sought to highlight the times where the media gets it right. The most gratifying thing? There are more such times than you might think – yet without the awards ceremony, these excellent documentaries, radio programmes, tweeters, bloggers and storylines could be be consigned to the dusty shelves of a basement archive, or to the crowded noise of the internet. In rewarding these efforts, Mind has brought them to the fore, saying, “look! This can be done well! Here are some excellent examples of people doing just that.”
I was incredibly privileged in 2011 to be shortlisted for the Mark Hanson New Media Award for my blog, Confessions of a Serial Insomniac. Despite my stunned gratitude and immense sense of honour, I really didn't know what to expect from the event – would media and PR 'types' live up to a sometimes-cynical reputation? To what extent would I feel out of my depth? Were some of the apparently encouraging media portrayals of mental health issues mere coincidence, rather than something researched and realised accordingly?
Well, I should not have worried. I was honestly moved – at one point, almost to tears (by Victoria Derbyshire's Alcoholic GP, if you're interested) – by the material shown/heard/whatever, but there was more than that. In discussion with other nominees, what struck me – aside from their down-to-Earth, friendly demeanours – was the passion they shared for their subject matter, and the genuine regard they had for those they had tried to represent. None of their enthusiasm was falsified or affected; they truly seemed to care about portraying an accurate and sympathetic view of issues surrounding mental health. Their work wasn't about sensationalising or dramatising for its own sake, or even just about viewing figures; it was about bringing an almost taboo subject to an engaged audience, and challenging them to think about it.
We need this kind of recognition and open discourse. Events like the Media Awards have occasionally been branded as highlighting prominent figures and material rather than the 'common' person suffering from a mental health problem. Aside from the fact that that's simply not true – I (amongst several other shortlisted entries in 2011) do not exactly have my face plastered over every motorway billboard in the country – whether the players are well- or little-known, they are valuable. It is only through regular public promotion that we can hope to normalise mental illness and empower those ordinary people who suffer from it daily – and shouldn't anyone who plays their part in that be rewarded and congratulated for it?
The Mind Media Awards won't change the world by themselves. What will? However, a combination of various things may do so. We have, for example, many people in the mental health community using the considerable power of social media – mainly to come together socially and in mutual support, but also to consolidate ourselves into one meaningful voice.
There are influential initiatives such as Time to Change. We've even now seen MPs speaking openly of their own mental health difficulties. All of these things are, in their own way, at least beginning to change an existing landscape of discrimination. In celebrating commendable discussion and depictions of mental health issues, the Mind Media Awards can only further this cause.
Pandora
You can read more about Pandora's personal experience of the 2011 presentation on her blog. Please note that the post contains strong language.
Pandora is now retired from her award-winning blog, Confessions of a Serial Insomniac, but the archives of the site remain online. She is also the co-Editor of The World of Mentalists (formerly This Week in Mentalists), which regularly highlights the best of mental health blogging and reporting, as well as other relevant stories.
Submit an entry, or suggest a winner, for the Digital, Journalist and Student journalist categories.
Submit your programme for the Documentary, Features and factual entertainment, Speech radio, News and current affairs or Drama awards.
7 Comments
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Some Guardian journalists have done good work which should be recognised, but medical soaps continue to produce the same old rubbish with their story lines which border on delusional.
As for celebrity service users [who don't use services], MP's speaking out [how did they vote?] and Time for Change [not addressing the seat of discrimination], I can't share your enthusiasm for these awards to dent anything. Service cuts and ideological changes, housing and welfare issues are infringing upon human rights, I'd rather see the money spent on judicial reviews. -
Thoughtful and well-written. Events like this that bring attention to mental health and mental illness should always be encouraged. Open and honest communication is definitely a step in the right direction and whatever fosters that in a positive way is good. Well done!
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"Service cuts and ideological changes, housing and welfare issues are infringing upon human rights, I'd rather see the money spent on judicial reviews."
Quite right, but does that mean we should ignore good portrayals of mental health in the media? It's fine for us as mental health patients and professionals to discuss the societal changes that need to be addressed, but the problem with this angle is that it doesn't dent the collective consciousness of people without mental illness. To me, mental health issues are just an everyday part of life, completely unremarkable, but I am reliably informed that the vast majority of people are still scared, wary or even contemptuous of those of us that suffer with these conditions.
If that's true, then your average person isn't going to care about judicial reviews or how the follies of the changes to the welfare system affect those with mental illness. As such, the only credible way to reach them and try to reduce stigma at a wider, macro level is through the media. Very little of mental health coverage is perfect, but better a good approximation than the load of crap one so frequently sees from the tabloids.
I genuinely can't see what's wrong with recognising people's efforts in normalising these conditions in this way, especially when Mind receives quite a bit of sponsorship for the event.
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Yes Pandora, for now yes.
Media awards make no difference to the collective consciousness because I think that if it did it would have done so by now as Mind awards [books and media] have been going for a long time. At least putting money towards redressing human rights might impact on people's lives in a more meaningful way. People need rights not events. As for those without mental health difficulties positive media where it exists is a drop in the ocean and the main seat of discrimination lies with policy makers, the media merely act at their behest.
It's like the millions spent on an Olympic opening ceremony for an event which will cost London council tax payers more, impact on their travel to work, leave little facilities for ordinary people afterwards and all at the same time that services to old and disabled people are being cut. We can honor people's efforts without such expenditure, it's a question of priorities. -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/housing-network/2012/jul/11/disability-related-hate-crime-social-housing
It is policy makers who have changed public attitudes
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Media awards eh? Yeah how many awards given to those who WRITE ABOUT REAL EXPERIENCES SUCH AS DAY TO DAY ISOLATION. I;m sick of middle class writers who think that 'giving us a voice' is good enough WELL I HAVE MY OWN VOICE AND NO BUGGER WANTS TO PUBLISH IT BECAUSE IT HAS WAIT FOR IT ANGER IN IT!!! I am a dambed good writer who has been at it for 30 years and I HAVE NO VOICE So enjoy your platitueds that are a million miles away from us who have to endure exclusion isolation and riducule. I bet not ONE person has been invitied who knows what real mental illness is and how we are treated in society- SICK OF BEING EXCLUDED EVEN THOUGH I HAVE TALENT GET IT SICK TO DEATH OF BEING EXCLUDED!!!!!!!!!
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Middle class?! Sorry, but you clearly didn't follow the link to my blog if you think that's what I am.
For four years I've struggled on, and fought to retain, state benefits. Yeah, I've budgeted for an internet connection - but clearly so have you. Some weeks I don't know if I'll be able to feed myself. I've been through the trauma of a WCA that nearly saw me hospitalised. I've promised to kill myself if, after fighting through hours of ESA forms, I have to go to another one.
Serial Insomniac was almost *defined* by anger and bitterness - with regards to employment, benefits, abuse, stigma, inadequate therapy, general 'screw my life', you name it.
I have a severe form of psychotic bipolar disorder, coupled with complex PTSD. I wrote on SI about voices demanding I kill myself - and worse, others. I wrote about dysphoric manias where I thought I'd completely lose my mind, anxiety where I thought death would embrace me by asphyxia, depressions where I could not get out of bed nor look away from the wall. I wrote about my child sex abuse. I wrote candidly and in great detail about the bitter, hateful, real experience of therapy. I wrote in pleading fury about the incompetence of my local health Trust.
In short, I wrote about very real experiences of mental illness.
And I went to last year's Mind Media Awards, and I won one. Presumably as I'm a good writer too - but clearly *not* because I've turned my writing into platitudinous nonsense that glamourises or tones down the severity of living with a mental health condition. The polar opposite is true.
I was genuinely surprised to win; partly due to my own sense of inadequacy, but also because I didn't think anyone *would* 'reward' such rage, candour and despair. But Mind *did*. Seriously, how can this not be to their credit?
Perhaps you still doubt me, but if after looking at my writing you still think I'm a cliched naysayer without real experience of mental illness, I'd be interested to hear how you concluded that.
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