At the Schizophrenia Research Foundation’s (SCARF) fifth ‘Media for Mental Health’ awards function on Saturday, Prabha Sridevan, retired judge, Madras High Court, spoke about the importance of having more stories on mental health in regional language media, which reaches the majority of the population. She also noted the difficulties in writing and translating such coverage as, sometimes, regional languages do not have words for specific illnesses or terms. She spoke, too, of the need for positive stories on mental health in all media, and how data could add to a good story.
Justice Sridevan gave away awards to seven journalists. The awards seek to recognise and encourage well-researched stories in the media on issues related to mental health. While four of the awards went to the English language category, two were for online stories and one was a special prize for consistent reporting. In the English language category, the first place went to Soma Basu for a story in The Hindu , the second prize jointly went to Priya Menon of The Times of India and Zubeda Hamid of The Hindu ; the third place went to Marisha Karwa of DNA . In the online category, the first prize was won by Nelson Vinod Moses, a freelance journalist, for a story in FactorDaily , and the second to Mrinalika Roy for a story in The News Minute .
The special prize was awarded to Mini Thomas of The Week .
