Getting the message

One of my friends who has done some thoughtful analysis of media reports on mental health pointed out the Globe and Mail of January 14, 2012 had a piece tucked away at the top of page F4 called “From Evil to Mentally Ill in the Media”. I found the reading of it interesting, particularly in light of my last blog on the role of media in addressing mental health problems and stigmatization that media reports can create.

The reporter, Erin Anderssen, comments on a study conducted in Montreal in which around nine thousand Canadian media stories pertaining to mental illness and found that only 12 percent took an optimistic or positive tone. About one-third use derogatory language in referring to people with a mental illness and about 40 percent related mental illness to violence and criminality. Wow! 

Although I am disappointed to read that data, I am not surprised by it. Why should the media harbor less stigma than the population in general? Should we expect reporters to know more about mental illness and write about it from a base of some expertise? The Carter Center in the United States of America has some very interesting programs in mental health literacy designed to better inform and educate reporters, with the expressed hope that once this happens their reporting will be more accurate and less stigmatizing,  this includes the Rosalynn CarterFellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Perhaps we need a similar program here in Canada.

That same page in the Globe carried a thoughtful and constructively critical story written by Erin Anderssen about a young man named Michael Kimber who has taken his story public, and how that story is making a difference. 

In my opinion, we need more Michael Kimbers and we need more journalists like Erin Anderssen.

--Stan

Reading between the lines

So it’s another new year. And of course, as traditionally expected, I have made some new year’s resolutions. One which I considered was to resolve to make no resolution but that seems a bit peevish. I did make a couple related to this blog. One was to try and be more consistent with writing and another was to try and point out how careful we need to be when we read or hear things about mental health and young people. Careful so that we do not confuse fact with fiction and careful so that we can critically consider what others write or say.

Take for example one of my favorite news stories of 2011 on adolescent depression. You can find it here. It made the CBC – so that is a pretty reputable news source. What does the headline say: Music Linked to Adolescent Depression. And the story is that there was a study of depressed youth conducted in Pittsburgh that showed teens who listened to the most music where about 8 times more likely to be depressed than those who listened to the least amount of music. Wow! 

What does that tell us? Does it mean that music causes depression? Does it mean that teens who are depressed use music to treat their depression (remember the Biblical story of David playing music to treat the depression of King Saul)? Does it mean that teens who are depressed are too despondent or tired to engage in study, group or social activities or challenging physical pursuits? Is there some other factor at play? Did the researchers just ask a million questions and in their statistical analysis they found this relationship by chance (this is called data dredging)? Who knows?

Well, nobody knows. So why is this news story? You got me.

So what are the implications of this story? Could it be fodder for idle cocktail chatter? Will parents whose teenagers listen to music start wondering if their child is depressed? Will teens who read this scoff and dismiss the story and the idea of depression as “bulls**t”?

I do not know how news editors select news stories about adolescent mental health. Perhaps they use common sense. Perhaps they try to identify stories that have the potential to inform and educate. Perhaps they choose on the basis of emotions or sensationalism. Perhaps there are other reasons (I would think so).

Could there be negative consequences to stories chosen, or how those stories are portrayed?  One huge area of concern regarding this issue is the well known contagion effect of media stories about teen suicide. Let’s keep a critical eye on how stories about youth mental health are reported in the media this year. Perhaps we will all learn something.

Happy New Year

-Stan