The Sun had a headline "'Sorry' for stabbing by schizo" which led to 43 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission over the use of the term "schizo". There was even a comment to the article which made a simila point:
Whilst I appreciate that this is a news story and that Benjamin Holiday’s mental health condition is relevant to the case to refer to him as a “schizo” does not add to the facts, all it does is turn a mental health condition into a term of abuse.According to a Facebook post on by the Rethink mental health charity, the complaints will not be upheld, but it does not say why.
Mental illness still carries a taboo; language like “schizo” reduces someone to their diagnosis in the most derogatory way using playground-taunts.
However, they also refer to the fact that in April the same word only led to 7 complaints and so they are not too disheartened.
[via a tip-off from Distillated]
2 comments:
It doesn;t give a definitereason, as you say, but they do speculate:
"This is disappointing but not unexpected. We know that the PCC only interprets its clause on discrimination as referring to the individual the article refers to and not to third parties who may be offended by the article in terms of its discriminatory language."
Spaz should be alright then?
Post a Comment