Fury at The Sun's "Killer Schizo" story
Yesterday The Sun printed a damaging and ignorant story about an escaped woman convicted of manslaughter, Patricia Gillette, who suffers from schizophrenia.
Fury at escape of killer schizo
According to an article by Time to Change, Rethink does not think using the word "schizo" is acceptable. Neither do I.
However my main concern is not about the use of an abbreviation which has become widely used as a derogatory term, but about the misrepresentation of schizophrenia in the press.
Whenever somebody suffering from schizophrenia behaves in a violent way, it gets reported in the press and the word "schizophrenic" is thrown in there like it's a predictable explanation. However there are over 600,000 people with schizophrenia in the UK and the vast majority are not violent and never have been.
Granted, newspapers are more likely to pick up on an escaped killer story than a respectable schizophrenic working in a charity shop, but because of the stigma surrounding mental health, I would like to see stories such as that of Patricia Gillette, written up in such a way that they don't propagate inaccurate negative attitudes towards people with schizophrenia.
One example might be, "Patricia Gillette is one of the minority of criminals who suffer from schizophrenia. Schizophrenic people are 14 times more likely to be the victim of violence than the perpetrator." 1
Update 18/11/2009 17:30:
The Sun have retitled the article "Fury at shop escape of killer"
References:
Schizophrenia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
6 comments:
I just did a search for the term "schizo" on the Sun website. There are 7 articles coming up with Schizo in their title; every single one is about crime - murder, stabbing, rape, drug production.
These articles propagate the myth that schizophrenics are all violent criminals and should be locked up for life. The comments left about this article indicate that Sun readers do not believe rehabilitation is possible and this is no doubt down to the inflamatory journalism that only seeks to increase the nation's ignorance and fear.
On the plus side... CONGRATULATIONS... your complaint and those of other enlightened people have led to the title of the article having been changed! It is now entitled "Fury at shop escape of killer".
I just want to say a massive well done, you drew my attention to this article and have made a series of enlightened and informative comments. Not only that but you have made a formal complaint to the Sun and prompted them to change the title of the article. It is people like you who will help to fight the tide of discrimination. I am very proud of you!
I think you've got your priorities wrong in this case, love
Catherine
Yes yes, it was all me, me ME! ;-)
Judging by my reply from the Press Complaints Commission, and the speed of The Sun's response there must have been hoards of complaints.
Anonymous
So where do you think my priorities should lie? With schizo-bashing?
Good point well made. Tabloids shouldn't be allowed to perpetuate prejudice just because it suits their lazy headline-speak. It takes campaigning to bring any minority its equal rights, so good on you for highlighting the issue.
You're absolutely right to highlight the issue, and thanks for doing it in such a punchy and entertaining way.
The problem with any negative stereotype is that it is liable to become both insidious and ubiquitous. Stereotypes are reinforced by unthinking repetition. In this instance the stereotype was been the tool of a lazy journalist, someone who should have a strong moral obligation to exercise care with language.
The solution to stereotyping is to halt the cycle of unthinking repetition, and to cause all of us to be careful with language. That can be done by education, by informed reflection, or (as in this case) by great writing.
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