Disabled New Zealand Media Personality Wins International Fellowship
Well-known New Zealand disability media personality Mike Gourley has won the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship in Mental Health Journalism.
The Fellowships are part of the former United States First lady's mental health programme in the USA.
Traditionally these Fellowships are offered only in the USA, but during 2000 Rosalynn Carter heard about the New Zealand mental illness de-stignatisation campaign "Like Minds Like Mine". She was so impressed that she offered the Fellowships in New Zealand, still the only country outside the USA where they are offered.
Mike is one of two New Zealand recipients, the other is John Francis, founding editor of Tearaway, a free newspaper for teens. He will produce 12 articles for that newspaper focusing on youth and mental health.
Mike believes he received the Fellowship for his work on New Zealand's long running disability radio programme, "Future Indicative".
Worth NZ$12,000, the Fellowship will enable him to pursue a New Zealand-based project during 2001-2002. He is focusing on the media reflecting on the media, a first for the Fellowship programme he believes. 'It will provide an opportunity to have a good look at the way media portrayal perpetuates misunderstandings of lives with mental illness,' Mike says.
As a disabled media professional he talks about 'the consciousness of the lack of our voices when the stories are being framed, and wanting to make that explicit.'
The project will take the form of three half-hour radio documentaries to be broadcast on public radio in prime time. They will consider how the media portrays mental illness issues, the alternatives, and changes. The Like Minds Like Mine campaign will be evaluated. International comparisons will also be featured, including Australia and the USA.
Mike sees the project as a partnership between the programme makers and mental health consumers. He wants to use the opportunity to take an in-depth investigative approach, and to mainstream the issue of mental illness and the media.
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