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MFI Web Radio Show Guest: Paula Caplan
We Are Our Own Media! Making News to Change Mental Health in Spring 2010
Tomorrow is another MindFreedom Web Radio Show, this time with authors Robert Whitaker and Linda Andre, who are reaching thousands of people about changing mental health care. It's a good time to reflect on "being our own media." This Spring 2010, we've had terrible media and good media, ranging from a professional reporter who called a psychiatric survivor a "crackpot," in print... to a student journalist struggling with the controversy of psychiatric labeling...
In less than 24 hours from this blog entry we have another two-hour MindFreedom Live Free Web Radio show with some great authors, and your live calls, on Saturday, 12 June 2010, at 2 pm ET USA.
So this is a madly good time to reflect on "Being Our Own Media" to change the mental health system.
I'll rant about that in a moment, below.
But first, here's another plug for our special guests on tomorrow's live show, which I'll host with your calls:
- Journalist ROBERT WHITAKER is the author of the new book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. It seems everyone's talking about this book's implications.
- Electroshock survivor LINDA ANDRE is author of the book Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You to Know About Shock Treatment. Forced shock survivor Ray Sandford promises to call and check in!
For more info about guests, books and show: http://www.mindfreedom.org/radio
You can listen and call-in live when the show starts, via your computer or call-in number 646-595-2125, or listen later to the archive, by clicking here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/davidwoaks
Some Reflections on Being Our Own Media in Spring 2010
The last few weeks there have been diverse examples about media and the mad movement - pro and con:
PsychOUT Fall Out
Last month there was a great gathering in Toronto, Canada of activists seeking truly deep change in the mental health system, called PsychOUT. I emphasized in my keynote and at the electroshock protest there, that in 2010, we are - each and every one of us - our own media. (Photo above right is from the protest.)
To complain about the corporate media, we had better take advantage of the technology available to us today, first, and be sure to cover our own events, in our own way.
The downside of repeating such a lofty pronouncement is that one actually has to do the work, and cover the event!
If you'd like to see a little photo essay, and a column about PsychOUT by me, click here.
I did better than the corporate coverage… but that was easy.Worst Mental Health Media Award
The mainstream media did an especially horrendous job covering PsychOUT.
Canada's National Post newspaper put us on their front page, but their reporter - Joseph Brean - wrote one of the most skewed and unprofessional articles I've seen.
Get this, in his own words - without quotes Brean refers to one of the psychiatric survivor presenters as a "crackpot." A bunch of us replied, and the National Post featured our letters.
To do more, and have fun, MindFreedom gave Joe Brean an award for Worst Media Coverage of Mental Health Month May 2010.
So many people have linked to our award about Joseph Brean, that when Joe "Googles himself" he will find that his award is Link Number One. You can help assure his fame by linking to his award page, here:
http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/media/mental-health-bias/joseph-brean
Maybe Brean will change his ways…Student Reporter Does Soul Searching
Haydenn Harper, a student reporter for a community college newspaper in Oregon called The Torch, did change his ways.
Harper did some quick soul searching about his "sanism,“ after his column about so-called "crazy" people on the bus received widespread criticism on campus.
Harper interviewed me and others, and exceeded my expectations. He went beyond a mere mea culpa about "politically correct" words. Harper produced a thoughtful piece examining the subject of psychiatric labeling, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
You can read Harper's piece "Mental disorders - diagnoses or discriminating?" by clicking here.
San Francisco Chronicle Chemical Crusade
A member called the office, alarmed that the San Francisco Chronicle seems to be on a "chemical crusade," publishing articles, columns and a prominent editorial with one goal:
Increase the forced psychiatric drugging of people living out in the community in the Bay Area.
I blogged about the San Francisco Chronicle's "pharmaceutical fundamentalism" a few days ago here, encouraging people to write letters to the editor. We shouldn't stay silent as the media scapegoats our people.
So far I haven't heard if anyone else has written to the Chronicle? Hello?
Speaking of Silence....
A few weeks ago, Mental Disability Rights International - a sponsor group of MindFreedom International - did a superb, extensive investigation about a Massachusetts facility famous for using coerced pain to try to change the behavior of young people. MDRI is educating thousands by charging this torture facility, called the Judge Rotenberg Center with, well, "torture," and has filed a complaint with the United Nations.
If you missed MDRI's report, you can read about it here:
http://www.mindfreedom.org/as/act/inter/mdri/mdri-rotenberg
But what about the mental health system of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? As I blogged a little while ago, back on 17 May I officially inquired with Anna Chinappi, MA DMH Director of Communications and Civic Engagement.
Ms. Chinappi not only refused to comment, she had their attorney - Lester Blumberg - actually tell MindFreedom that they had no comment. This reminds me about the silence of other taxpayer-funded regulators who were supposed to do something about Bernie Madoff and BP Oil when whistleblowers alerted them.
No word from Ms. Chinappi yet. I've set my iPhone to remind me on the 17th of every month to see if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has uttered a peep about Rotenberg.
Massachusetts is on my mind, because we've noted that McLean Hospital, where I was forcibly drugged eons ago, is celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2011. Several of us McLean survivors and allies are networking, to provide a little rain on their parade.
Remember Mad Pride!
To end this rant on a positive note...
Mad Pride events have been using culture for over a decade to get around these media blockades, and reach the public directly. Mad Pride can break out of our mad ghetto, where we just talk to one another!
MindFreedom International helps coordinate promotion of Mad Pride events internationally with an e-mail list. Check out this video that we're discussing that just came out about one of Mad Pride Ireland's recent events this Spring 2010, gathering thousands of people in a park.
It has nice quick cuts, background sound, well done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBvoNcdrrpw
I'm excited about our own Mad Pride activities here in Oregon, because "The Real" Patch Adams, who is a clown/physician and one of MindFreedom's most famous activists, will be joining this year on the Sunday of the Oregon Country Fair!
By the way, if any of you are attending Alternatives 2010, I intend to be there, too, and you can attend MindFreedom's Mad Pride Caucus on Friday night.
Be Your Own Media
The bottom line is, each of us needs to be our own media, to break the silence about the need for a true nonviolent revolution throughout the mental health system.
Our MindFreedom web site has tips about how to do this.
How to get out your own news via MindFreedom and the "mad movement":
How to put out your own human rights alert about abuse in the mental health system:
http://www.mindfreedom.org/mfi-faq/how-to-write-a-human-rights-alert/
MindFreedom is looking forward to your news and alerts, which can be sent to: news@mindfreedom.org
And if any of you want to work with MindFreedom on our "Web 2.0" efforts - from Facebook to LinkedIn - join MFI and be on our web crew!
