How Might Journalists Quote the Person and Not the Disease?

What are journalists to do with public figures who suffer from mental illness yet have a lot that they want to say? When they are quoted, who is talking — the person or the disease? And do media outlets that provide a platform run the disturbing risk of turning us all into mental-illness voyeurs, gawking at the rantings of someone who may not have full control?

These questions have become important ones this month because of the claims of rap star and celebrity entrepreneur Kanye West. West announced he was running for president July 4. He said several years ago that he suffers from bipolar disorder, and he was hospitalized for a “psychiatric emergency” in November 2016. In interviews, West has said he was diagnosed about four years ago. “It’s not a disability, it’s a superpower,” he said (Pasquini, 2018). In a 2019 Vogue cover story, his wife, Kim Kardashian West, said he has opted out of treating the disorder with pharmaceuticals.

But the ethics of showcasing someone such as West became front and center July 8, when a Forbes writer published an article based on “four rambling hours of interviews” that presented his most outlandish claims in a bullet-point format. Among them: He’s suspicious of a coronavirus vaccine, terming vaccines “the mark of the beast.” He believes “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.” And he envisions a White House organizational model based on the secret country of Wakanda in Black Panther. “If it all sounds like a parody, or a particularly surreal episode of ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians,’ West doesn’t seem to be in on it,” the article stated (Lane, 2020).

The article not only raised the question of whether West or his illness was being spotlighted, but also whether the piece was exploitative and whether such coverage reduces a serious issue to macabre entertainment.

To be sure, the media and celebrities have always “used” each other. It is a symbiotic relationship in which both parties are guilty of some degree of exploitation. But a verified case of mental illness changes the equation. Journalists should never use celebrity status, braggadocio, or outlandishness as a screen to sensationalize neurosis. In the case of West, many media professionals recognized the peril. In a thoughtful essay, New York Magazine writer Craig Jenkins observed:

“[F]our years after West’s 2016 psychiatric emergency, many of us in the audience and in the press still haven’t figured out how to deal with the auteur’s journey with mental illness or the possibility that it animates his ideological choices … The lack of context regarding his diagnosis (and the timing of his more grandiose statements) in the Forbes piece and in coverage elsewhere on the internet, which questions the viability of the presidential bid but never entertains the possibility that the man giving all the outlandish pull quotes might not be doing so well right now, illuminate our inability to step back and ponder the ethics of the internet content mill when the subject is a world-famous rapper prone to puzzling public remarks that he later regrets.

Shortly after the Forbes piece, Kardashian West issued her own statement. “Anyone who has [bipolar disorder] or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how complicated and painful it is to understand,” she wrote. “I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health.” She said she decided to open up in order to destigmatize the condition and clear up some of the misconceptions about mental illness.

“People who are unaware or far from removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try,” she wrote (Lewis, 2020).

In cases such as West’s, media outlets indicate their ethical orientation through the discretion they exercise. Several outlets across the country have done just that, issuing memos to staff to reconsider the newsworthiness of his claims. Shortly after West’s presidential bid announcement, a producer at ABC News in New York instructed staff to pull back on covering or retweeting West’s claims, and end live streaming of West on the outlet’s Facebook feed, while continuing to report on developments such as West’s failure to qualify for the ballot in South Carolina. This kind of discretion not only protects troubled news subjects from possible harm and exploitation, but it bolsters journalistic credibility.

“Kanye is ill. It’s quite different to talk about your sexual prowess, how you’re going to set the record straight and diss all your critics and create the next futuristic shoe than to say you’re running for president under the Birthday Party with an organizational model based on Wakanda,” writes bipolar disorder expert Julie A. Fast. “Right now, his grandiosity is manic and psychotic grandiosity and it’s dangerous. In my opinion, he will be in the hospital soon. It happened this way when Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris. It’s the same show, over and over again, until a person with bipolar disorder gets help” (Fast, 2020).

The lesson West offers journalists is an important one: Cover the person and listen carefully for when the illness takes over the words, when braggadocio becomes psychotic grandiosity. Then, turn off the recorder and close the notebook.