Mental Illness and the Media

Hi,
How ironic! last night after viewing Andrew Denton's excellent show on mental illness titled 'Angels and Demons' I flick the switch to Channel 9 to catch up on the daily news on Nightline only to be subject to perhaps one of the most callous and uninformed pieces of news reporting I have ever witnessed We are shown an extended piece of video footage shot in Brisbane of a injured and naked man in obvious complete mental distress hobbling up and down the middle of a busy road lying down in front of cars and generally doing his best to get killed ASAP. The we flash to an interview of the person on the street who thought nothing of filming this scene from his balcony and selling to the News rather than trying to offer any other form of assistance -- THEN ---to top it all off we hear about how recently a resident had been killed by an Outpatient of the nearby Psych Hospital??? Finally we hear from the heroic amateur camera man about how his wife was no longer able to use the streets for fear of being attacked by crazies!!! As they say some things change and some things just stay the same!

Neil