One story. Two different leads.
A man has been released from jail after serving time for 22 months. He was found guilty of killing his mother with a kitchen knife.
The ABC ran the story with the lead-line: A Canberra man found guilty of killing his mother with a kitchen knife has walked free from court with a four-year good behaviour order.
The SMH ran this story, beginning with: A son with Asperger’s syndrome who stabbed his mother 57 times has been set free after 22 months in jail.
In the ABC’s story, the fact that the son has Asperger’s syndrome is not mentioned until the 10th paragraph. Even then, the journalist has said he “showed signs of having a personality disorder known as Asberger’s Syndrome”, not “he has Asbergers”.
In the SMH’s story however, the son is immediately identified in the first paragraph as having the disorder. The whole story is then coloured by this fact. The reader is led to think, “this is what happens when you have Asberger’s Syndrome; you end up killing your mother”. They may think this even though lots of people who have been diagnosed with Asberger’s Sydnrome do not end up commiting violent crimes - that if you are charged with a crime, you are more likely to be a male than you are to be living with a mental illness (statistically speaking).
Last year while training with Fairfax, I did a course on responsible reporting and mental health issues. In particular, we learnt not to stigmatise diseases by reporting offenders as a) having a condition (as opposed to showing symptoms of a condition, or diagnosed with a condition), b) using “victim” language in relation to the condition, with words like “suffering from” or “disease”, and c) making a natural, causal link between the disease and the crime when writing up a story (i.e. A man diagnosed with skitzophrenia has been charged with murdering his sister; a woman who has been known to suffer from depression has been linked to child abuse incidents in Stevetown Daycare Centre). This is really important with mental health issues, as negative reporting and stereotypes can prevent people from seeking help out of fear of being discriminated against.
Good on ABC for its responsible reporting. Shame that in this case, Fairfax doesn’t follow it’s own training…
“Personality disorder” is a funny, loaded, phrase to use to describe Aspergers, which is mild autism as far as I know.
Alison
August 7th, 2008
good point. I looked it up on wiki (source of all knowledge…how gen Y am I) and it says its an “autism spectrum disorder”. Though the media wouldn’t use that term, mainly because it’s not widely recognised by the public. But you’re right - it does bring up the question of whether a stigma is attached to personality disorder. What connotations does it have?
onlinesoph
August 7th, 2008
This is a really helpful blog post. Thanks!
John Dekker
August 7th, 2008
thanks for this. confirms me in having abc as a homepage instead of smh!
Dave Miers
August 7th, 2008
It’s funny, my initial feelings were pity/sadness for the man
because the way I read it is that, because he has AS, he doesn’t have full control over his facilities, so was possibly a bit more forgivable for his actions? So maybe instead of tarnishing people with Asberger’s, I saw that they were being more forgiving about his crime? I agree with you that SMH tends to sensationalise more than ABC, but I didn’t read it the same way you did for some reason.
Maybe it’s because I know a lot about Asbergers that I know it doesn’t cause you to kill your mother but the general public don’t know that, so your point still stands. Hope I was clear enough…?
Libby
August 7th, 2008
Great post Soph. I noticed the same thing when Dr Jayant Patel was brought back to Australia. Channel 7 lead with something like “Serial killer Jayant Patel…” then SBS said “Jayant Patel who allegedly killed a number of patients while working as a doctor at Bundaberg hospital” - talk about sensationalist reporting. Terrible.
mattt
August 8th, 2008
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