Fatal crash headline 'stigmatising': NGO

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By mikemcalevey on Thu, 4 Feb 2010
Health | bipolar | crash | mental | ngo | stigmatisation | Your Town: Dunedin

Thursday’s Otago Daily Times article about a fatal eight car crash in Auckland was grossly stigmatising for people with mental illness said a spokesperson for Standard Nine, an Otago mental health consumer NGO.

“It was unnecessary and pointless to headline that the driver in the crash was a “mental patient”.

The implication of the headline was clearly that the man’s mental illness had something to do with the crash. That was sensationalist and uninformed speculation.” said Standard Nine.

The article reported police as saying that the man was a “bipolar mental patient on medication”.

Thousands of people have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder said Standard Nine. They may include your shopkeeper, your lawyer or your school teacher.

The article stigmatises those people when they are actually far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.

Standard Nine said that the greatest risk factor for violence in our community is being male.

A more useful headline may have been “Fatal crash driver was male”.

 

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Fatal crash headline

Submitted by Msr on Fri, 05/02/2010 - 10:32am.

I fully support the comments by Mr McAlevey. To put it in context and to provide another perspective, how often is it reported, “Fatal crash caused by unmedicated diabetic / epileptic/or any other medical condition?"

Many people who suffer from diabetes, when very low on sugar can be very aggressive and act in an inappropriate manner.

Are they stigmatised in the media in the same manner? Maybe the reporter needs to remember that 1 in 5 New Zealanders will experience some form of mental illness in their life time. The reporter may be 1 of 5, or their family member, friend or work college.

Would the media be so stigmatising in that case? The facts are very clear, people with the lived experience of mental illness are no more of a risk to other people than any other sector of our society.

 

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