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.