| The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is dedicated to informed, innovative and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy. The Scattergood Foundation will support the Dart Center in presenting four workshops over two years for journalists on mental health issues in Pennsylvania. These workshops will increase the capacity of local and regional news media to provide informed, expertly-sourced and timely reporting on pressing mental health issues. They will also serve as a model for similar regional mental-health reporting workshops around the country.
The first workshop will focus on improving news coverage of the mental health challenges facing returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. The second will concern media coverage of youth suicide, particularly on college campuses.
The workshops will serve as a forum for educating news professionals and mental health research, policy directives and local issues; connecting journalists with leading scholars to inform news coverage moving forward; and presenting best practices, ethical challenges and new research in mental health reporting. Enabling reporters from the Philadelphia area to produce stories that shed light on mental health issues, the Dart Center and Scattergood Foundation believe will encourage a deeper understanding on the issues within the wider public. This deeper understanding could potentially inspire changes that will lead to better mental health policies and programs. |
