Reporting trauma and mental health: We can do more

Three years ago I interviewed PC David Rathband who, as an unarmed policeman sitting in his car, had been shot and wounded by the gunman Raoul Moat.

He was blinded permanently by the attack and some of the shotgun pellets were still embedded in his face. He wanted to talk about what had happened to him, to raise awareness and funds for a charity he’d set up for other injured officers, called the Blue Lamp Foundation.

He was in training for the London Marathon and doing endless runs tethered to a sighted police colleague. When he ran, he did so in darkness and he loathed it.

It was an emotional interview: David cried and often reached for my hand. He couldn’t see my producer, and he wasn’t aware of the microphone; all he could hear was my voice.

I asked whether he was comfortable that such a personal conversation would be edited to less than a quarter of its length and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 to more than two million people. He said yes; he wanted his story heard, however uncomfortable it felt.

So the interview was broadcast, won plaudits, and was listed by the Radio Times among the best ever broadcast interviews. Less than a year later PC David Rathband killed himself.

The brilliant US broadcaster Studs Terkel says the job of a radio interviewer is to mine for the “precious metal” in an individual, and that questioning should take the form of a casual conversation, but one in which “in time, the sluice gates of damned up hurts and dreams (are) opened”. The motive is to provide an entertaining, informative broadcast, revealing the life experience of others.

But the mining process sometimes leads journalists like me to question our role and responsibilities in interviewing those who are defined, in 2011 guidelines published by Ofcom, as “vulnerable people… those with learning difficulties... mental health problems… the bereaved… people who have been traumatised or who are sick or terminally ill”.

Both Ofcom and current BBC editorial guidelines stress the importance of providing “a voice to people confronting complex challenges”. They warn against using discriminatory language and urge careful reporting of suicide. However, much of the news media tends to focus on whether the contributor is well enough to give informed consent. What constitutes ‘informed consent’ in the context of someone who has experienced severe trauma, or who has a complex mental health problem, is not, I’d argue, a question asked by every news journalist who is sent out to report on a breaking story and quickly gather the thoughts of those involved.

In nearly 30 years at the BBC, I’ve interviewed many people at violent or traumatic events, from the Hillsborough stadium disaster to the Paddington rail crash, Asian tsunami and Pakistan earthquake. My role involves getting something on air fast, and that often entails talking to people who are still in shock. In longer recorded interviews in a studio, there is more time to discuss with the editorial team what to ask and how to ask it. However, the objective is the same: to get an interview that will make the audience think.

The media typically use medicalised language, reducing an interviewee to a condition or problem. Words like ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘depressive’ can create stereotypes. In their submission to the Leveson Inquiry, the Mind and Rethink Mental Illness charities suggested that prejudice develops because of the language used in the media. People with mental health issues are sometimes described as a ‘victim’, or ‘dangerous’, with descriptive words used like ‘psycho’ or ‘crazed killer’. Mind calls this the creation of ‘the dangerousness myth’.

In Australia, journalists and broadcasters have been invited to meet psychiatrists and people with mental health problems, with accompanying educational programmes and joint team projects. A study into the effectiveness of this strategy found most respondents reported that there had been organisational change in attitudes towards mental health.

In the UK, guidelines for broadcasters on reporting mental health and suicide were published in 2008 by the Department of Health. Its media handbook 'What’s the Story?' urged journalists to report fairly and accurately, to use quotes from people with mental health issues, and to give out numbers of helplines like the Samaritans. The journalists’ union the NUJ has issued something similar. However, much more can be done.

The BBC recently agreed to make a video for the College of Journalism website highlighting the most common errors. I’d urge media companies to do similar and go further. Increased education and scientific literacy, with training in mental health matters and instant access to the tools and resources needed to understand problems and conditions, can reduce stigma, as the Australian model shows.

This is an edited version of a longer article that appeared in The Psychologist magazine in March 2014.

Sian Williams has been a BBC broadcast journalist and presenter for almost 30 years. She is currently completing a master's degree in psychology at the University of Westminster, studying how news crews can be protected from psychological trauma and how they deal with those caught up in it. Sian is also a trained trauma risk management assessor.

Sian Williams: Trauma in journalism

College of Journalism’s safety section

Interviewing skills