Language around mental health — like gender, race and sexuality — needs reconsideration
Culture,Media Bias,Mental Health,Media Industry,Psychology
A reassessment of language has taken place in newsrooms across the country over the past several years — and rightfully continues. While a reckoning over race, gender and sexuality has changed what’s covered and how, the discussion around the language and use of terminology related to mental health appears to be lagging.
Even as a litany of stories about work-life balance and why to stop doomscrolling have proliferated during the pandemic, the language used in hard news, features and the culture at large really hasn’t changed.
The brother-in-law of a Boulder, Colorado, mass-shooting suspect was quoted in a May New York Post story as saying, “We just don’t know what made him go so crazy. I wish we knew”; outgoing Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass recently said that “wokists went bonkers” after the Oprah-Meghan Markle interview; and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) referred to “retarded children” while discussing a housing initiative.
