Public Policy Researcher
focusing on media ethics, gender narratives
My name is Dhara Patel, from the state of Gujarat. For me, the path to becoming a journalist started not in the newsroom but in silence—the kind of silence regarding issues related to mental well-being, women, and people whose existence goes unnoticed by everyone else. In 2018, I founded “You Are Not Alone,” a project devoted to community mental health intervention. It didn’t take long for the project to turn into something much more significant—hundreds of people contacted me, sharing experiences of feeling lonely, ashamed, and neglected by everyone. And the major question was always the lack of accessibility to medication. This was not something unique; rather, it was quite a common experience.
This experience taught me a great deal about journalism itself. News reports tend to be viewed as just neutral facts being documented. Nevertheless, journalists’ decisions on what is important, how it should be told, and what questions are asked will determine what is considered real for people.
“You Are Not Alone” served as a living document of the realities of mental health issues. I have heard stories of mothers being labelled as possessed or morally weak if they were depressed, families who did not think that crying or sadness warranted attention, and boys who never found names for their suicidal thoughts. Such stories rarely make it into public discourse unless something goes wrong, like when a shocking event occurs. The circumstances leading to such events, whether it is postpartum depression, unpaid caretaking, financial instability, or social isolation, continue to go unseen.
The importance of this point cannot be understated. If the media always describes a mother who kills her children as “heartless,” but never wonders if there was postpartum depression or if she faced too much pressure from caring for all three children on her own, the discussion will become moralistic and narrow. However, if a man commits murder, the media is more inclined to refer to the event as an “incident” or a “case.”
This realization informed the creation of “Dhara for Dhara,” a research project aimed at analyzing the role of media framing in influencing people’s perceptions of issues related to gender, mental health, and governance. Collaborating with the younger generation of journalists and media students showed a common lack of training in these areas. The commitment and accuracy are evident, but training in gender sensitivity, trauma-sensitive journalism, and systems thinking is lacking. Therefore, despite having the facts right, important details and contexts remain unreported. Journalism captures voices but fails to question the silence.
The significance extends far beyond the story itself. Take, for instance, hit-and-run cases. Legally speaking, the driver may be charged based on technical statutes, but the grieving family carries the loss throughout their life. When citizens see no connection between the procedural justice system and the emotional impact of their situation, they lose faith in justice. Democracy does not solely depend on the laws written in legislation but on the actions taken by institutions that make them relevant to citizens’ lives. If you commit murder, the crime fixes you for a few years, but if you kill someone through a hit-and-run (an accident), it may free you within a few months.
Stories ending with incidents neglect opportunities for prevention. Why do some social problems persist through the ages? How does a combination of factors, such as unemployment, digital exclusion, deficiencies in preventive health education, and high youth dissatisfaction, lead to social disorder? A journalism that starts with an incident and leads to a systematic analysis can reveal the pattern before it turns into an accepted one. A narrative that raises questions about solutions will be a catalyst for action.
Media coverage also affects mental well-being. There is no doubt that sensationalism and shaming cause harm in terms of mental health conditions, including anxiety, social isolation, and the loss of respect. Individuals who were involved in discussions on the topic reported a rise in anxiety levels following shaming and said they felt ashamed to engage in public debate because of it.
In order to be truly valuable to society, journalists need to expand their scope of work. These are concrete actions that journalists, educators, and editors can implement:
- Embedding basic mental health awareness and gender sensitivity in journalism courses.
- Emphasizing systems journalism by adding context, follow-ups, and experts’ opinions to incidents.
- Developing trauma-informed editorial guidelines to prevent re-victimization.
The numbers speak for themselves. According to the World Health Organization, mental illnesses may cost the Indian economy around 1.03 trillion USD by 2030. These costs are measured in wasted potential, a wasted labor force, and, above all, lost lives. While numbers fail to stir emotions, stories do. When journalism goes from simply covering incidents to explaining structures, it gains power as an instrument of prevention and change.
Listening taught me what systems ignore. Questioning narratives showed me what they normalize. One journalist cannot reform every institution, but journalists can change the questions a society asks. And when questions change, nations begin to change.
