Letters / Tabloid media
Last week both the Shetland Times and the Shetland News wrote a story about a local 21-year young man with mental health difficulties and an incident when he was apparently attempting suicide and phoned the police for help. (‘Attention seeker’ jailed for eight months; SN, 28/9/16)
Clearly anybody is this state of mind is a vulnerable adult and in need of care and protection.
I along with others was upset in the way the media wrote about this young man.
The Shetland News‘ ‘Attention seeker’ jailed for eight months headline was sensationalist and inappropriate.
There is nobody who is more in need of attention than somebody with mental health difficulties, this is clear to any adult or even child who is at all concerned about other people.
The headline was judgmental and not in keeping with protecting this vulnerable young man who was clearly suffering at the time of the incident.
People are concerned about his lack of privacy, sadly the outcome of the case was imprisonment and not hospital treatment which in the opinion of many would have been a better outcome for him.
He is not going to get well in prison and will probably come out even more vulnerable than he currently is.
The reporting in the Shetland Times was equally inappropriate. It was the main story on the front page and many feel it did not need to be.
Clearly the media have a role in telling the public about cases that go through our court system but surely when the person is clearly vulnerable with respect of mental health then some sensitivity is required in the reporting of it.
There are many local and national charities that work daily to fight the stigma of mental health. One in four people every year suffer from a diagnosable mental illness.
Mind Your Head, the local charity, fight hard to get rid of stigma and do excellent work; many hundreds of people each year participate in the annual walk to raise awareness. One suicide on these isles is one too many.
The media have a position of responsibility to promote health and wellbeing and not to draw attention when people are clearly suffering.
I, like many, am very disappointed in what they did. I, for one, feel for him, his mum and dad, his friends, his brothers and his sisters.
How much pain was caused to them last week as they struggle to cope with what has happened to their loved one. How hard has it been as they go to school, to work, to the local shops, seeing the front page of the Shetland Times in every shop? What pain they are suffering?
Please consider the sensitivity issues in your reporting and know that people here do read your websites and do buy the Shetland Times in large numbers, you do not need to have sensationalist headlines to get people to read your website pages or buy your local paper, that will happen, please stop behaving like tabloid newspapers, we really don’t need that here.
Joyce Davies
Skeld
Note from the editor:
Shetland News is confident it is not behaving like a tabloid and its headlines are not sensationalist.
Court reporting is one of the most challenging parts of our job, and by its very nature will not please everybody. Every professional care is taken to ensure that our reports accurately reflect what is being said at court.
In this case a 21 year old man has been sent to jail for eight months after admitting to a string of offences, some of them serious. It was the Crown that described his behaviour as “attention seeking”. During the hearing it was hinted by the defence that his actions might be seen as a “cry for help”. This, however, was not accepted by the sheriff, who said that he had no confidence that the young man would comply with a community payback order.
Please remember, we don’t judge; we report.
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