Top 10 Media Tips for Psychiatrists and Residents

Hi, my name is Jessi Gold, I am a psychiatrist, and I believe it is important that we participate in the media as a part of our jobs. In fact, I sometimes even think it is more important than writing academic articles.

While you are either picking your jaw up from the floor or applauding in agreement, I want to expose my bias up front as this piece is not about whether you, as a psychiatrist or psychiatrist in training, should be involved in writing and speaking to the media; this piece is about how.

Assuming you are going to write or speak to the media, or have an interest in getting started in doing so, I’d like to offer some basic tips to keep in mind:

• Make a list of what topics you feel comfortable talking about: It is best to start your involvement in the media by addressing topics in which you specialize. This is, in part, because of comfort. Let’s face it: you will feel a lot less nervous talking about topics you already know inside and out. You will then feel as though you “came off well” and “sounded intelligent” and will subsequently be able to build confidence to become more involved with the media. This is also about the need for preparation. It can take a lot of time to become informed enough to be called an “expert” on something. Often you have less than 24 hours to respond to a request for an interview. You will likely want to do research first, but even then, you still might freel unprepared. Such topics may be better addressed by someone else, and that’s OK. Keep in mind that if the interviewer is a media personality and not a psychiatrist, the bar for qualifying as an expert is a lot lower than in academia.

• Write out talking points as you can always pivot to those: Prior to participation in a television or radio show, it is always helpful to write down three to five topics that you want to be sure to discuss. You can write them on notecards and keep them somewhere off camera (or in front of you for radio). Not only will you feel better prepared, but also you can use these points to pivot the interview away from topics you don’t want to discuss or don’t feel comfortable discussing and toward topics that you do. Politicians tend to use this technique very effectively, as well as celebrities pushing their books or products.

• Request the questions ahead of time: Interview requests often come through your hospital’s PR department or even APA. Reporters write a few sentences about what their piece or on-air segment is on and what they hope to get from an expert. Getting the questions in advance allows you to decide whether you feel comfortable participating (that is, are you the right fit?) and gives you time to prepare. Even experts don’t always know exact statistics, for example. You don’t want to be caught off guard.

• Speak as though you are talking to a patient: This might seem obvious to you, but I can’t count the number of times I have seen physicians on television get this wrong. While it is true that you are acting as an expert, your target audience is not other physicians or people with high health literacy. You want to convey the information in a way that your patients would understand. Thus, avoid acronyms, jargon, and trade names and don’t slip into in-depth descriptions of neuroscientific pathways. You might not even want to use a disease name; instead, you can describe the disease or its symptoms. Using conversational language helps ensure you are understood by the interviewer and the audience.

• Look up any relevant guidelines before blindly talking about a topic: While this is not true for every topic in psychiatry, this is particularly important when discussing suicide or when asked about the mental illness of a celebrity or famous figure. You should know the best practices for what you should and should not say to the media. You should also use this opportunity to educate reporters on these guidelines if they push for answers (for example, “but don’t they seem manic?”).

• Avoid stigmatizing language and conclusions: We are in a field in which stigma exists and is a major barrier to care for many of the people you are reaching. By sharing our messages with the public, we are making psychiatry more accessible and less scary. We want to convey positivity not only in our body language and own likability, but also in our word choice and conclusions. For example, don’t call someone “a schizophrenic”; instead, refer to “a person with schizophrenia.” When making a general statement, say that you know people experience illnesses in different ways and that you are just talking about what happens to most people whom you see. Also, reporters sometimes want to make mental illness a scapegoat (for example, gun violence), and it is our job to recognize what they are doing and stop it from happening. We also want to avoid the colloquial misuse of mental health diagnoses.

• Don’t be afraid to say “No,” “I don’t know,” or “I’ll get back to you”: We are perfectionists and do not like to admit when we do not know something. Not knowing something, however, is human and normal and actually expected. Reporters typically plan to talk to multiple experts for a piece, and if you can’t answer a question, they will simply ask the next interviewee. Also, reporters do not always know the topics well themselves and might ask questions that do not make sense to you or feel relevant. You can always educate them on why their questions are off the mark. Even if they have a thesis, you are in no way pressured to agree with it or their conclusion. You also can tell them that you will look something up and provide a response in writing. This is often helpful as it will point them toward data and a source as well.

• Ask to see your quotations before publication: Colleagues have often told me to write out answers for reporters to prevent being misquoted. While doing so is always an option, you can ask reporters to show you the piece, or at least your quotations, before publication for accuracy. They want their piece to be scientifically sound and thus typically will agree to your request, but often they won’t show you the entire piece due to their publication’s rules. If you are writing an op-ed with an editor, however, you should be involved in the editing process from start to finish.

• Don’t be afraid: I think reporters and other people who work in media have a bad reputation. You might feel as though reporters are somehow trying to trip you up and get you to say something stupid so they can publish it and make you look bad. In my experience, however, this could not be further from the truth. In fact, your saying something stupid is actually a detriment to their piece as you are serving as an expert on a topic that without you they are lacking solid information. Your role is helping them—you are not the “gotcha” topic of the piece.

• Put yourself out there: You will only get better and more comfortable interacting with the media by trying. And you will only get more writing opportunities by pitching, getting rejected, and pitching again until you get something accepted. You will only know that you like interacting with the media if you give it a try.

It is important that psychiatrists are the people their patients see and hear in the media and not the Dr. Phils and Dr. Ozes of the world. We need to help create the narrative of mental health in the public sphere. Come join me! ■