The reader Cayetano Toledo, member of the SoyComotu Foundation, dedicated to the fight against stigma and social discrimination of people suffering from a mental health problem, wrote to me a few weeks ago following a news published in La Vanguardia in the that it was pointed out that a man who assaulted several women could have been “diagnosed with a mental illness”. Toledo warned that the assumption “is stigmatizing” because it leads to think that “people with mental health problems are violent and dangerous”. And he reflected: “It is human to try to explain the inexplicable or unknown in our behaviors, and sometimes we turn to mental health problems for this. And so we are all calmer.”
The reader Natàlia Ballester also wrote to me for this same reason and did it again, days later, for another article, in which it was explained that a man who killed his wife and two children in Prat de Llobregat, and then threw himself onto the train tracks, had tried to commit suicide two months earlier. Ballester regretted that that detail, included in the headline of the news, led to think “that the killer killed them because he had mental health problems”.
Susana Quadrado, editor-in-chief of the Society section considers it essential to make it clear that “mental disorder does not imply violence or criminality” and agrees that “you need to be very careful to avoid this type of association”.
Mayka Navarro, author of the information, also declares herself a firm defender of the importance of “doing pedagogy and making mental illnesses visible” without any type of stigma or prejudice. The journalist explains that on this occasion the family, judicial and work environment sources of the murderer with whom she spoke emphasized this fact and considered that it was one of the few exceptions in which this circumstance had to be included in the news.
The rule that is applied on countless occasions, Quadrado and Navarro explain, is not to publish information or details of this or any other personal nature if they are not relevant and, moreover, reinforce stigmas.
To help eradicate them, the main task of the media must be to address the challenges and facets of mental health, as is often done in the pages of Sociedad, with the importance and appropriate treatment in information and reports in depth
