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In 1987, two years before I graduated college with a Bachelor's Degree in telecommunications, I was already working on my first paid professional job in the media. I was a news writer, editor and narrator for a 24-hour news TV channel in Puerto Rico, something like NY-1, the 24-hour news cable channel here in New York City. It was one of the most exciting jobs I have ever had. I got to see hundreds of video recordings of news from all over the world as they came through the station's satellite services, and I got to read countless news reports that we received through the newswire services.

It was a privileged opportunity to see the news before it was broadcast to the public. It was also a huge responsibility to be part of the team that filtered and chose which news stories were to be edited into a video report, and which stories would reach the desk of the news anchors and, ultimately, the public.

On any given day, it was amazing to have seen the overwhelming amount of news that reached the division of an all-news television station. 1987 was a full nine years before I became a consumer of mental health services, or before I knew anything about mental health or the mental health community. So, I don't have a personal recollection of how my employer approached the mental health community or mental health news.

What I do know is that in the decision-making process of which news to broadcast and which news not to, there were the presences of extremely powerful competing interests for "air-time." Those "competing interests" were the various special interest communities of the country: the political parties; politicians as individuals; the entertainers; the environmentalists; the pacifists; the religious organizations; individual religious leaders; government agencies; government bureaucrats; community-based leaders; and organizations with all sorts of interest issues. The country's own cultural and socio-political climate was a factor in what was "newsworthy." Moreover, having a friend or a sympathizer working inside the TV station was also a factor in whether "your story" was going to make it in the newscast.

Our newspaper, New York City Voices, recently held a benefit/award ceremony in Manhattan. Over a dozen media outlets in the city were properly informed about the event. Not one single member of the press covered the event or the extraordinarily positive stories that we had to tell.

Once in a while we can find positive stories about people like ourselves in the press. But I think that many media-watchers will agree with me that, usually, positive media profiles about mental health consumers in recovery and leading successful lives are not generally featured for the public. This may be a malady of news editors who decide what the public wants to see and read. It seems that the media is more interested in sensationalistic stories about mental health consumers. Diabetics or cancer patients do not have to break the law to be in a major newscast.

I strongly believe that positive stories about recovery and treatments for mental health are indeed newsworthy. Those stories have a place in the soft-news, health and human interest divisions of a TV newscast or a newspaper. We don't, however, see many of our true stories in those media frameworks. We are, generally, not news unless we break the law and do something terrible that will pander to the public's misperceptions and fears of the mentally ill.

On many occasions we do make the front pages of the newspapers and we are the "breaking news" stories of some newscasts. But this only happens when a crime has been committed, and/or when a consumer has shown bizarre behavior that provides morbid entertainment for the general public.

Not one reporter came despite all of the prominent citizens that were available at the Voices' event. All we needed was a single report through the newswire services that a consumer committed a violent act during the event. Believe me, the press would have been there to document that.

Press coverage or not, the Voices event was a smashing success and all of our goals were met. I just hope that, in the future, we will see more media stories about the many faces and the many worlds of mental health consumers. This is a duty and a responsibility that the news media has to meet.