Feature

Treatment for media madness

People with schizophrenia have had enough of media misrepresentation. Nigel Rose reports on an innovative response

Loony, schizo, maniac, monster, psycho sex fiend, nutter, sick killer are just a few of the terms used in the press to describe people with schizophrenia. Even the so-called quality newspapers continue to emphasise a link between schizophrenia and violence. This is not common or garden violence, however, but a particularly frightening and disturbing kind, described as random and motiveless, and reaching epidemic proportions, with people being ‘released’ from hospital (never discharged) to roam the streets committing random acts of violence. The solution to this ‘problem’ is to lock people away or to more closely supervise and control them. The Department of Health has instructed every district to set up a supervision register, on which all those who pose a danger to themselves or others will be placed at the discretion of their psychiatrist. The register has been denounced by all the major charities and most of the professional bodies as a stigmatising and largely irrelevant time wasting exercise, with far reaching and negative consequences for those placed on it.

If the press linked black people to violence, as used to be commonplace and remains a strong undercurrent, and then suggested that black people should be sent away, locked up or controlled more tightly, there would be an outcry. But the media are skilled at exploiting the deep fear that so many of us have about insanity. The headlines confirm what we already half know, that people with schizophrenia are dangerous and not to be trusted.

This has powerful consequences for people with schizophrenia. People hide it away, afraid to tell others about their diagnosis, fearing the consequences, not only for them but for their partners and families. Some people are abused and attacked if neighbours find out. People can’t get decent housing, or employment, unless they are able to conceal their diagnosis. This has devastating consequences for self-esteem and confidence.

In December an important step to counter this barrage of negative and offensive reporting will be taken, with the launch of a new national body, the Schizophrenia Media Agency.

The purpose of the agency will be to make it morally and socially unacceptable to portray people with schizophrenia as violent and dangerous on the one hand, or pathetic and pitiable on the other. It will constantly challenge negative stereotypes in the media, and encourage a realistic portrayal of mental illness. The SMA’s forthcoming booklet, Freed to Kill, will detail media coverage of mental illness in July 1993, a period of particularly virulent press attacks on people with schizophrenia.

In The Mail on Sunday, on 11 July 1993, Julie Birchill summarised in forthright language what many newspapers had been saying through implication and innuendo during that period: ‘Last week saw the conviction of a schizophrenic released from the hatch only to rape three women; there have been 40 murders by mental patients in the two blood-drenched years since the grotesquely named Care in the Community con came into being… Not only have the lunatics taken over the asylum; thanks to this government they’ve now taken over the streets too, making them one big open prison. Open for them, prison for us.’

On the weekly programme on disability issues, On the Edge, produced by the BBC’s Disability Programmes Unit, two members of the SMA will interview the former editor of a tabloid newspaper, asking him to justify such a portrayal of people with schizophrenia.

The SMA will also encourage the media to report issues relating to schizophrenia in different, less stigmatising and more interesting ways that reflect the real experience of those with the diagnosis. To this end the SMA will produce a leaflet for journalists with report writing guidelines together with useful information on schizophrenia and the discrimination faced by those who suffer from it.

The SMA is recruiting people with schizophrenia who are willing to talk to the press or appear on television to help give a real voice to people who, as things stand, are denied one. It has recently held the first ever training event in media skills for people with schizophrenia. The agency will be able to respond quickly and appropriately to journalists who wish to interview people with schizophrenia, and as experience increases the organisers hope that the SMA will be able to use the media actively rather than just responding as passive victims.

It may take many years to make the changes that the SMA wants to see. But the experience both of black people and people with HIV/AIDS in challenging media stereotypes shows that it can be done.

Schizophrenia Media Agency, c/o Hearing Voices Network, 1st Floor, Fourways House, 16 Tariff St, Manchester M1 2FN. Tel: 061-228 3896.