Media coverage can have a profound effect - positive or negative - on public attitudes towards mental health. 

As well as having a direct effect on public opinion, media coverage can also directly affect the confidence and self-esteem of people with mental health problems themselves.  

Unfortunately, media coverage of mental health issues is frequently sensationalised and ill-informed.  In a 1997 report, the Health Education Authority found that almost half of national press coverage during the previous year linked mental health problems to violence and criminality. 

In another survey, 40% of the general public associated mental illness with violence and said this belief was based on the media. 

Sections of the media regularly flout the Press Complaints Commission's code of practice on presenting mental health issues. This states that: 

The press should avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to a person's race, colour, religion, sex, or sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

Despite this, articles and headlines carrying stigmatising words such as "nutter", "schizo" and "loony" still appear.  

Perhaps not surprisingly, in a survey by Mind in 1996, 60% of people with mental health problems felt that the media was to blame for discrimination they faced.

	tell your story if you have experienced discrimination on the grounds of mental health.			read gerry's story for his thoughts on the media and discrimination