McNeely Presents at Behavioral Health Convening

The advisor to NC State’s student newspapers spoke to a group of college administrators from around the state about student mental health, student journalism and where the two intersect.

Ben McNeely, NC State Student Media’s editorial adviser, was a presenter at the 2024 Behavioral Health Convening held at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill May 14. The title of his session was “How Student Journalists Can Responsibly Report on Mental Health.”

The session centered around a training McNeely developed for NC State’s student journalists in 2022-2023, a year in which 14 students died. “Responsible reporting can mitigate suicide contagion,” he said. “Sensationalizing mental health issues makes the problem worse.”

The training balances the public’s right to know with best practices from the field of health care reporting. The training is based partially on a similarly-themed presentation to student journalists and campus communicators by Rose Hoban and Taylor Knopf from North Carolina Health News in the spring 2023 semester.

The training also draws heavily on Solutions Journalism, an emerging school of journalists focused on problem-solving. In the context of student mental health, solutions-based stories can be tools to empower people and give them hope — which can go a long way toward combating stigma. 

Technician participated in the Mental Health Collaborative, with eight other student newsrooms across the state, as part of the Solutions Journalism Student Media Challenge. That project, led by The Daily Tar Heel, brought together student journalists to do deep-dive reporting on student mental health issues on campuses, both public and private.

McNeely’s training is now mandatory for all student journalists-in-training working for Nubian Message and Technician, as it focuses on the mental health of the student journalists themselves as much as it focuses on covering mental health on campus.