Pilot trial of a media intervention with journalism students on news reporting of mental illness in the context of violence and crime

Issue addressed News reports linking mental illness to violent crime are among the most stigmatising portrayals. These portrayals can perpetuate stereotypes of dangerousness, negatively influencing public attitudes and having a harmful impact on people with lived experience of mental illness. With the aim of improving the quality of news portrayals and mitigating harm, best-practice guidelines for media reporting on mental illness, violence and crime have been developed. To increase understanding of the guidelines' content, a 1-hour workshop based on the main principles was developed for journalism students. Methods In this study, the workshop was piloted with a pre and 3-week follow-up evaluation with a cohort of journalism students (n = 29). Results Three weeks after the workshop, there were significant improvements in attitudes towards severe mental illness, knowledge of best-practice reporting, intentions and confidence to report consistently with the best-practice guidelines and performance on an editing task designed to assess adherence to the guidelines. Belief in dangerousness/unpredictability reduced markedly, demonstrating that the workshop effectively addressed misinformation about people with severe mental illness being a risk to the public. Conclusions This pilot trial provides promising initial results and provides a basis for wider implementation and evaluation of media training on this topic. So what Improved understanding of best-practice media guidelines, as generated through this workshop, has potential to reduce stigmatising news reporting on people with mental illness, and consequently reduce public stigma.