Newslaundry report wins SCARF Media for Mental Health award

A Newslaundry story won the second prize in the SCARF Media for Mental Health awards. In a ceremony yesterday, writers Tanishka Sodhi and Abhimanyu Hazarika were awarded the prize for a story published in Newslaundry in April last year.

The awards are instituted by the Schizophrenia Research Foundation, or SCARF, headquartered in Chennai, and felicitates work that has contributed to mental health awareness.

Newslaundry's report looked at whether top newspapers in India comply with globally accepted norms on suicide reporting. The piece analysed 25 articles each from the Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Telegraph, New Indian Express and Hindu, from September 2019 to April 2020. In case of four of these dailies, suicide coverage norms were breached in varying extents.

Read the full report here.

SCARF described the report as "a quick journey through the prescribed guidelines on suicide reporting" and commended it for its "bold and brilliant analysis on the glaring flaws in the reportage that journalists might do well to address". The organisation pointed out that journalism "plays a key role in informing the public about mental health and helps to remove stigma and discrimination of people living with mental illnesses".

The first prize was awarded to Tabassum Barnagarwala of the Indian Express for her report on how Maharashtra "rehabilitates" patients in mental institutions to an erstwhile leprosy home, a beggar’s home, old age homes and women shelters.

The third prize went to Shreevatsa Nevatia for his Huffington Post report on the loneliness of mental health caregivers.

The winners were selected out of around 40 entries by a jury that included Dr Jaya Sreedhar, a media health consultant, writer and chairperson of the SCARF Media Awards, and Venkatesh R, editor-in-chief of Dinamalar Pattam.