Why psychiatry should engage with the media

Abstract

Psychiatry receives less media coverage than general medicine, and the coverage it does receive is four times as likely to be negatively framed. In addition, coverage of mental health problems is often negative in tone and mental health research tends to be underrepresented in the media. As the media is likely to be a key source of information for the general public about mental health and psychiatry, this is worrying. There are opportunities, however, to change this landscape; the UK national news media are keen to cover more stories about mental health problems and to feature more psychiatrists' comments in their coverage. By engaging with the media, psychiatrists have the chance to create better-informed media narrative.