All too often the press blunders when it comes to discussing mental illness. So, when the press gets it right, let's shout and take note. Three items deserve attention:
- A special online edition of the American Prospect is a welcome assessment of the damage done by political inertia, ethical failures, and blinding ignorance which have too often been at the core of policy and politics of mental health reform. Several articles in this online edition discuss the impact of these decades of ducking responsibility, dating from the origins of de-institutionalization, undermining possibilities for reform despite system produces fractured results. It has hindered recovery despite evidence of the human and fiscal savings that are possible.
- From Toronto comes a series titled "Breakdown: Canada's Mental Health Crisis" in The Globe and Mail. This interactive site addresses Canada's need to draft national policy for mental health reform. By following people with several types of mental illness, including anxiety disorders -- the most common mental illness in Canada affecting one person in eight -- there are insights into the challenges facing people managing with bipolar depression, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. There are links to provocative essays including one from Michael Kirby, a former member of parliament, discussing how attitudes have polarized as a result of stigma.
- Ethicist Art Caplan made a guest appearance writing for Al's Morning Meeting, a feature directed to the press by Poynter Institute columnist Al Tompkins. For this three-part essay Caplan laid out how "an eerie silence" pervades press coverage of alcoholism despite occasional attention to a celebrity. Caplan says, "One of the most neglected areas of health care coverage is mental illness. Addiction is among the most neglected mental illnesses. Of all the addictions, the most common, and easily the most devastating one, is alcoholism." This, he argues, should be enough to warrant attention from the press.
MiWatch agrees.
