Aims of
Media Work

HUG's media work aims to challenge attitudes by enabling users to raise public awareness and speak out against stigma and discrimination by:

• Developing strong relations with local, Highland and national media.
• Encouraging realistic, accurate and responsible reporting on mental health issues by media professionals.
• Ensuring continuous and regular press coverage on mental health issues.

We hope to achieve these aims by building up longer-term relationships with local, Highland and national journalists to raise awareness of the issues and lives of people living with mental illness, and to encourage appropriate use of language when reporting on mental health issues.

An important aspect of this work is to ensure that the direct voices of users of mental health services are heard loud and clear in any media coverage of these issues.

In a survey by Mental Health Media in 2001, only 6.5% of press articles contained the views and voices of mental health service users.
(Mental Health Media, Mental Health and the Press, survey 2001)

We believe it is less easy for journalists (and the wider public) to dismiss someone who can talk articulately about their experiences and engage in debates on wider issues.

We have a group of HUG members who are willing to be interviewed about their personal experiences, and who have spoken openly to the media in radio interviews, on TV and in newspaper feature articles on e.g. depression and schizophrenia.

• Aims of Media Work
• Successful Media Work
  
  
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