Mad and Bad Media

Simon Cross recently gave a conference paper on press representations of the 'mad and bad' at a Conference on Language, Culture and Politics in Krakow.

--> Simon argued that, in the wake of the UK’s Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the popular press, journalism educators must reconsider whether ‘poor’ journalism practice can remedied. A case in point concerns media reporting on mentally disordered offenders, which is pock-marked with infected consequences of ‘mad and bad’ clap-trap dished out by pathological tabloids. The idea that tabloid reporting on the mad and bad is a condition of ‘poor’ journalism not only misdiagnoses the problem but also reckons it has remedy to improve the condition: educating editors in the error of their ways. Drawing on original research his paper shows that instead of educating tabloid editors and journalists we need a radical response to eradicating tabloid pathology. His ideas aimed to counter a tendency in journalism studies reluctant to criticize tabloid populism on mental disorder. By doing so it moves beyond a heuristic dictated by tabloid logic on mad and bad and speaks to our need to develop a political sensitivity in journalism education beyond the status quo. 

SImon Cross, 'Mad and Bad Media: the Pathology of British Tabloids', 5th Annual International Conference on Language, Culture and Politics, Tischner European University, Krakow., 6-7 June 2013.