New Shift publication - What's the Story: Reporting Mental Health and Suicide

[sh...@csip.org.uk]

Shift has today published a new handbook that will help the media
improve public understanding of mental illness.

The handbook, 'What's the Story?: Reporting Mental Health and
Suicide', gives practical guidance to the media on covering suicide,
mental illness and violent crime by psychiatric patients.

It follows a survey which found three out of four people think the
media fails to properly inform the public about mental illness.

It focuses particularly on setting rare but sensational murders
carried out by a small number of people with mental health problems in
a wider context. It is believed that coverage of these cases
contributes to the widespread misconception that many people with
experience of mental health problems are violent. In fact, millions of
people have mental health problems and very few are violent.

The guidance gives journalists advice on how to avoid causing needless
offence to the many readers, viewers and listeners affected by mental
health problems. It highlights international evidence that careless
reporting of suicides triggers copycat suicides and encourages the
media to include helpline details - 'sensitive' reporting can
literally save lives.

For more information and to download a copy of What's the Story, go
here:

http://shift.org.uk/mediahandbook