Media Problems

Problems in community whole-system approaches.

One of the mental health promotion and supporting policy across settings is Media and information setting:
A. Mental health information strategy.
B. Public health obsevatory
C. National confidential inquiry
D. Mindout campaign
E. World mental health day
F. NUJ guidelines
G. Press complaints commission
H. Advertising standards authority

The key objectives for Media and information settings are:
A. Increasing positive media reporting.
B. Improving awareness of mental health.
C. Increasing local date
D. Improving access to information on services support and self-help.

However it is always be a question that what is the role of the media.

Many researchers believe that high-profile news reports of deaths may push vulnerable or depressed people to commit copycat suicides. In one year in the 1970s, for example, there were 60 suicides by burning in the UK after reports of a woman burning herself to death in Switzerland. Such suicides are normally extremely rare.

These deaths create a problems ofr journalists. Dramatic suicides are worth reporting. They usually interest readers a lot more than boring stories about parliamentary politics. So suicide prevention organizations are trying to teach journalists t owrite about them more sensitively.

The United Nations published reporting guidelines in 1996, advising the media not to focus on the hopelessness of the dead person's life or make suicide seem glamorous. They were told not to endlessly repeat the story or describe the method used. However, there is still a long way to go. In July 2001, the New York Post was criticized for a front-page story with the headline: 'Model found dead in pool of blood'. It went into great detail about how the woman had killed herself.