I’ve been warned that fighting stigma is a bit like tilting at windmills, but I find it difficult to keep silent when I see blatant examples. Dr. Phil’s comments about how “insane” individuals “suck on rocks and bark at the moon” were especially offensive since he is a psychologist. Last night, I flipped on the news and heard NBC Anchor Brian Williams make remarks that were just as stigmatizing. Williams announced that Ariel Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper/rapist who held three women captive for a decade, was “arguably the face of mental illness.” Not content to toss millions of Americans who have mental health issues under the bus, Williams spoke with contempt about how Castro had given a rambling, difficult to hear speech, during which he justified his actions by “appropriating the language of the addiction and treatment culture” and declaring himself “sick.” What exactly is the “language of the addiction and treatment culture” Mr. Williams? As a former reporter for The Washington Post, I would never have jumped to the conclusion that Ariel Castro has a mental illness simply because he committed heinous crimes. In an email this morning, my friend, Bob Carolla, director of media relations for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, pointed out that Williams violated a recently approved standard in the Style Book of the Associated Press. Style books are the “bibles” of journalism, establishing the rules that responsible reporters are supposed to follow when writing stories. On March 7th, of this year, the AP added new guidelines that reporters should follow when writing about mental illnesses. Clearly, Brian Williams didn’t get that memo. In June, The White House held a mental health summit during which President Obama declared that our nation has to rid ourselves of the “embarrassment” associated with mental illnesses. “We’ve got to get rid of that stigma,” President Obama said. If you wish to know how difficult that is going to be, turn on Dr. Phil and NBC Nightly News. The question is: how do we go about changing this? [One easy thing is to sign a petition demanding NBC apologize.] Here are the guidelines that Brian Williams ignored. Someone needs to read them to him, especially the bold faced paragraph! (Thanks to Jeremy Lincicun for providing YouTube of Brian Williams.)

Entry on mental illness is added to AP Stylebook

March 7, 2013

Associated Press today added an entry on mental illness to the AP Stylebook.

“It is the right time to address how journalists handle questions of mental illness in coverage,” said AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. “This isn’t only a question of which words one uses to describe a person’s illness. There are important journalistic questions, too.

“When is such information relevant to a story? Who is an authoritative source for a person’s illness, diagnosis and treatment? These are very delicate issues and this Stylebook entry is intended to help journalists work through them thoughtfully, accurately and fairly.”

The entry, which was immediately added to the AP Stylebook Online and will appear in the new print edition and Stylebook Mobile, published in the spring, reads as follows: