On 2014 Apr 27, C B Jessee commented:

I had sent an email to the authors with no response. My Letter to the Editor (below) was rejected by AJPH in 2 minutes.

To the Editor: McGinty and colleagues write in AJPH March 2014 "News Media Framing of Serious Mental Illness and Gun Violence in the United States, 1997-2012", that: "Mental health researchers have long suspected that news media portrayals of violent persons with SMI contribute to negative public attitudes about persons with serious conditions like schizophrenia. This suspicion is supported by results of a recent experimental study, which found that respondents who read a news story describing a mass shooter with SMI reported higher perceived dangerousness of and desired social distance from persons with SMI, compared with respondents randomly assigned to a control group." Their referenced study (Am J Psychiatry 170:5, May 2013) found an increase from a baseline of ~75% to ~80% in predicted support for "gun restrictions for persons with serious mental illness". While the increase of <5% was statistically significant, the authors concluded that: "Our findings do not support the mental health community’s contention that messages about gun restrictions for persons with serious mental illness worsen negative attitudes toward this population." The more significant message from McGinty et. al. (2013) seems to be related to inclusion in news articles of more detailed information on “dangerous weapons” and proposed laws to regulate them, with the authors noting: “…news media messages about banning “dangerous guns” with large-capacity magazines raised support for such bans…” – an observation supported by a demonstrated increase in predicted support for a “ban on high-capacity magazines” from ~50% to ~70%. In their AJPH paper, McGinty et. al. find that: “…most news coverage occurred in the wake of mass shootings, and “dangerous people” with SMI were more likely than “dangerous weapons” to be mentioned as a cause of gun violence”, and express concern that “Of the stories that mentioned SMI as a cause of gun violence, only 16% clarified that most people with SMI are not violent.” It is not clear whether that concern is justified if, as predicted in their prior study, the baseline sentiment against persons with SMI are already very high and only minimally increased by focus on SMI in news following mass shootings. Indeed, a Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends/search of “school shooting” and “mental illness” indicates a relative interest ratio of 100 to 7 at the time of the Newtown shooting, despite the news media focus on SMI that McGinty et. al. (2014) found.

On 2014 Apr 27, C B Jessee commented:

I had sent an email to the authors with no response. My Letter to the Editor (below) was rejected by AJPH in 2 minutes.

To the Editor: McGinty and colleagues write in AJPH March 2014 "News Media Framing of Serious Mental Illness and Gun Violence in the United States, 1997-2012", that: "Mental health researchers have long suspected that news media portrayals of violent persons with SMI contribute to negative public attitudes about persons with serious conditions like schizophrenia. This suspicion is supported by results of a recent experimental study, which found that respondents who read a news story describing a mass shooter with SMI reported higher perceived dangerousness of and desired social distance from persons with SMI, compared with respondents randomly assigned to a control group." Their referenced study (Am J Psychiatry 170:5, May 2013) found an increase from a baseline of ~75% to ~80% in predicted support for "gun restrictions for persons with serious mental illness". While the increase of <5% was statistically significant, the authors concluded that: "Our findings do not support the mental health community’s contention that messages about gun restrictions for persons with serious mental illness worsen negative attitudes toward this population." The more significant message from McGinty et. al. (2013) seems to be related to inclusion in news articles of more detailed information on “dangerous weapons” and proposed laws to regulate them, with the authors noting: “…news media messages about banning “dangerous guns” with large-capacity magazines raised support for such bans…” – an observation supported by a demonstrated increase in predicted support for a “ban on high-capacity magazines” from ~50% to ~70%. In their AJPH paper, McGinty et. al. find that: “…most news coverage occurred in the wake of mass shootings, and “dangerous people” with SMI were more likely than “dangerous weapons” to be mentioned as a cause of gun violence”, and express concern that “Of the stories that mentioned SMI as a cause of gun violence, only 16% clarified that most people with SMI are not violent.” It is not clear whether that concern is justified if, as predicted in their prior study, the baseline sentiment against persons with SMI are already very high and only minimally increased by focus on SMI in news following mass shootings. Indeed, a Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends/search of “school shooting” and “mental illness” indicates a relative interest ratio of 100 to 7 at the time of the Newtown shooting, despite the news media focus on SMI that McGinty et. al. (2014) found.