THE MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT: THE MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT: THE MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT Changes in media reporting of suicide and mental health and illness in Australia: Changes in media reporting of suicide and mental health illness Australia: 2000/01–2006/07 2000/01–2006/07 Jane Pirkis, R Warwick Blood, Andrew Dare, Kate Holland with Bree Rankin, Michelle Williamson, Philip Burgess, Damien Jolley, Nicole Hogan and Sonja Chandler THE MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT Changes in media reporting of suicide and mental health and illness in Australia: 2000/01–2006/07 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Catherine Francis for providing advice on study design in the follow-up year of the project. They would also like to express their gratitude to the staff of Media Monitors Australia for retrieving the media items. Most importantly, they would like to thank Jacqui Carter, Lee Carter, Sophie Liu, Liz Rowe, Jeremy Coade, Anna Kelsey-Sugg, Julian Hobba, Kate Kelsey-Sugg, Melissa Reed, Alexandra Dazey, Sam Rankin, Tim Bail, Hannah Dyson, Michiko Weinmann, Catherine Francis, Andrew Stewart and Belinda Morley for coding the media items. This work was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. Disclaimer The opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government. This document is designed to provide information to assist policy and program development in government and non-government organisations. The Media Monitoring Project Media reporting and portrayal of suicide and mental health and illness in Australia: Improvements, challenges and prospects ISBN: 1-74186-667-7 Online ISBN: 1-74186-668-5 Publications Number: P3-4146 Paper-based publications © Commonwealth of Australia 2008 This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney-General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at http://www.ag.gov.au/cca Internet sites © Commonwealth of Australia 2008 This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney-General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at http://www.ag.gov.au/cca Contents of suicide and mental health illness in of changes in media reporting Quantitative review Quantitative review of changes in media reporting of suicide and mental health and illness in Australia: 2000/01–2006/07 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Chapter 2: Method 5 Chapter 3: Overview of media items 9 Chapter 4: Newspaper items on suicide 11 Chapter 5: Television items on suicide 19 Chapter 6: Radio items on suicide 25 Chapter 7: Quality of suicide items 31 Chapter 8: Newspaper items on mental health/illness 45 Chapter 9: Television items on mental health/illness 51 Chapter 10: Radio items on mental health/illness 57 Chapter 11: Quality of mental health/illness items 63 Chapter 12: Discussion 75 Appendix 1: Search terms 81 Appendix 2: Media sources 83 A Appendix 3: Media sources visited by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health ustralia: 2000/01–2006/07 as part of the Mindframe Media and Mental Health Project 99 Qualitative analysis of selected Australian news media coverage of suicide, mental health and mental illness 113 Chapter 1: Introduction 115 Chapter 2: Media resources & guidelines on suicide & mental illness 118 Chapter 3: The approach 125 Chapter 4: Research methodology 129 Chapter 5: Death by suicide of two Melbourne girls 131 iii Chapter 6: Teenage suicide—‘special’ newspaper feature 148 Chapter 7: Opinion features about the news reporting of suicide 150 roject P Chapter 8: The death by suicide of ACT Chief Police Officer Ms Audrey Fagan 154 Chapter 9: Police, suicide & mental illness 160 onitoring Chapter 10: The ‘helpline’ funding shortfall 165 M edia Chapter 11: Attempted suicide—celebrities 166 M he Chapter 12: ‘Suicide sites’ 172 T Chapter 13: Mental illness on the radio 180 Chapter 14: The death of a young Canberra boy 192 Chapter 15: Deaths by suicides of military personnel 194 Chapter 16: Murder–suicides 198 Chapter 17: Suicide attempt court case 203 Chapter 18: Suicide statistics 204 Chapter 19: Deaths by suicides of farmers 206 Chapter 20: Community mental health news & features 220 Chapter 21: ‘Against the grain’—opinions challenging the medicalisation of mental illnesses 228 Chapter 22: Deaths by suicides at Telstra 231 Chapter 23: Politicians & depression 235 Chapter 24: Wayne Carey’s comments 239 Chapter 25: Attempted suicide—Steve Vizard’s bookkeeper 241 Chapter 26: First-person accounts 244 Chapter 27: ‘Crisis’ in the mental health system 246 Chapter 28: Language use in mental health news & features 250 Chapter 29: Helpline data analyses 261 Chapter 30: Conclusions 264 References 271 iv Quantitative review of changes in media reporting of suicide and mental health illness in of changes in media reporting Quantitative review Quantitative review of changes in media reporting of suicide and mental health and illness in Australia: 2000/01–2006/07 A ustralia: 2000/01–2006/07 1 CHAPTER 1: of suicide and mental health illness in of changes in media reporting Quantitative review Introduction Internationally, concerns have been expressed about the potential negative consequences of irresponsible reporting of suicide and mental health/illness. Numerous studies have shown that reports of suicide can lead to imitation acts, particularly when the report is prominent, glamorises or sensationalises suicide and/or describes the method of suicide in detail[1, 2]. Similarly, a number of studies have demonstrated that the media strongly influences community beliefs about mental illness, suggesting that inappropriate reports may contribute to stigma and discrimination. In 1999, such concerns led the Australian Government to introduce the Mindframe National Media Initiative, in an effort to encourage responsible, accurate and sensitive media portrayal of suicide and mental illness. A key component of this initiative is a resource entitled Reporting Suicide and Mental Illness[3], released in 2002 and designed to provide guidance to media professionals reporting in these areas. This resource was modified from an earlier version known as Achieving the Balance[4], produced in 1999. Around the world, a number of other similar resources have been produced, although most focus exclusively on suicide rather than on suicide and mental health/illness. The majority of these resources have similar content, recommending, for example, that journalists should avoid providing specific detail about a suicide, and should provide help/support information for vulnerable readers or viewers. They differ, however, in terms of the ways in which they have been developed and distributed to media professionals. Reporting Suicide and Mental Illness[3] has stood out internationally because of the involvement of the media in its development, and because of the process by which it has been promoted to the media. The resource has been disseminated via the Mindframe Media and Mental Health Project, which has been managed by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health in partnership with SANE Australia, Auseinet (the Australian Network for Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention for Mental Health) and Multicultural Mental Health Australia. Project staff have supported media organisations in their use of the resource by conducting face-to-face briefings and drop-in visits, offering ad hoc A advice, distributing hard and soft copies of the resource and supporting materials, and providing ustralia: 2000/01–2006/07 ongoing follow-up. They have also conducted evaluations of the reach and impact of the resource, following organisations up several months after briefings and/or receipt of materials. The current study, known as the Media Monitoring Project, involved a systematic investigation of whether there have been changes in the extent, nature and quality of reporting of suicide and mental health/illness during the life of Reporting Suicide and Mental Illness[3]. The Media Monitoring Project collected media items on suicide and mental illness over two 12-month periods, one prior to the introduction of Reporting Suicide and Mental Illness[3] (2000/01), and one subsequent to its introduction and dissemination (2006/07). It did this with the aim of answering the following research questions: a) How does the Australian media report and portray suicide and mental health/illness in 2006/07? 3 b) Does this differ from how the Australian media reported and portrayed suicide and mental health/illness in 2000/01? c) Are any apparent differences in reporting and portrayal of suicide and mental health/ illness between 2000/01 and 2006/07 associated with Reporting Suicide and Mental roject P Illness? The Media Monitoring Project has two components, one quantitative and one qualitative. This section of the report describes the way in which the quantitative study was conducted, onitoring M its findings and their meaning. Chapter 2 describes the scope of the study, the method by which media items were identified and retrieved, and the way in which the data were handled. edia Chapter 3 provides a broad overview of the media items retrieved in 2000/01 and 2006/07, M and Chapters 4 to 11 present the comparative findings as they relate to particular types of he T media items. Finally, Chapter 12 summarises the findings in relation to the research questions, outlines some study limitations, offers an interpretation of the results and makes some recommendations regarding future directions. The qualitative results of the study are presented in the second part of this volume.