The coverage of Ant’s arrest makes a mockery of progress in mental health reporting
One of the great (and underestimated) journalistic advances of the last decade or so has been in the area of reporting about mental health. Back in the early 2000s, it was not especially uncommon to see tabloid headlines referring to “schizos” or “nutters”. Perhaps most infamously, The Sun ran a front-page splash about the boxer Frank Bruno, who
had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, with the headline “Bonkers Bruno locked up”. Mental ill health in all its forms was largely misunderstood and cast within a narrative which placed it firmly outside what was regarded (by some newspaper editors, at least) as normal.
Things have changed for a number of reasons. First, mental health charities worked hard in conjunction with MPs and regulators to engage with journalists and editors, highlighting (and complaining about) inappropriate coverage, while promoting journalism that served to empathise and explain. Second, we have seen several examples of high-profile individuals – from Stephen Fry to Prince Harry – who have opened up about their personal experiences of mental ill health in a way that has underscored the reality (and universality) of conditions once regarded as taboo. Third, the changing demographic make-up of newsrooms has arguably encouraged a more open attitude to an issue which affects most of us at one time or another, either directly or indirectly, and to varying degrees.
In this context, some of the media responses to Ant McPartlin’s involvement in a road traffic accident on Sunday feel like a bit of a backward step. McPartlin’s journey into depression and painkiller addiction has been well-documented, not least by tabloid newspapers. In 2014, he damaged his knee, which led the following year to what has been described as “botched” surgery. To combat the pain, he took everything from tramadol to diazepam and oxycontin, and washed the pills down with excessive amounts of alcohol.
Last summer, McPartlin told The Sun how he had entered rehab to combat his addictions and the depression and anxiety which were seemingly wrapped up with the drug use. In the subsequent months, his marriage to Lisa Armstrong has apparently broken down too.
Pun-based headlines underplay the seriousness of both the incident and the longer-term context in which it has inevitably been placed
Much of the coverage about McPartlin’s travails has been sympathetic and impressively frank. In another era, he would almost certainly have been judged more harshly and more simplistically. He is, after all, one of the best-known people in the UK, alongside his long time co-presenter Declan Donnelly. In January, the pair won the best presenter award at the National Television Awards for the 17th consecutive year.
What’s more, his decision to talk publicly about his descent into heavy reliance on pain medication has been one of the drivers behind greater discussion about the use of such drugs in this country. Both the London Evening Standard and the BBC published investigations last week into the growing scale of the problem, which has already left a trail of devastation across the United States.
Yet much as McPartlin’s arrest on suspicion of drink-driving following involvement in a car crash is undoubtedly newsworthy, pun-based headlines such as The Sun’s “Ant and Wrecked” seem to underplay the seriousness of both the incident and the longer-term context in which it has inevitably been placed.
There is, as has been pointed out many times, a peculiarly British desire to chart (and in this reality show age, even revel in) the rise and fall of celebrities. Perhaps because so many reach for the stars and never get there, we appear to be reassured by the discovery that the few who do can easily be brought back to reality – however much they seem to have the world at their feet.
Paradoxically, it is this apparent desire to feel attuned to the lives of famous people that helps to explain why personal accounts of mental illness by celebs have had such a profound effect on public debate. It would be a tragedy if the advances in society’s understanding – and the media’s coverage – of psychological ill-health were undermined by headlines which presented mental health problems merely as
the inexorable nemesis of the hubristic.