Alastair Campbell: I tell this paper about my depression and guess what happens...

Last week I gave an interview to this paper in which I talked about depression and how I have endeavoured to overcome it. It's an issue about which I've always been fairly open, but I was struck by the extent of the response. On a phone-in on Tuesday, every call was supportive, people seemingly pleased or relieved to hear a largely taboo subject being brought into the open. Generally, people understand. They are human beings. They are not only sympathetic to the difficulties of someone they have never met, but very often they have a friend or relation who has suffered from mental illness. I was quite encouraged.

Until I went into Jeremy Vine's studio and was reminded of the nastier side of our media. Jeremy conducted a serious, grown-up interview, as you might expect. But he insisted on referring to an article that had appeared that day. What he read vindicated, yet again, my refusal to read The Daily Telegraph (or Mail, for that matter). It talked about depression as being "the new must-have disease among those in the public eye", as if it was an excuse for behaviour of which the paper disapproves.

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The British press can always surprise with its crass contrariness. Whenever anyone has a serious point to make, some smart-arse will pop up with a "clever" attempt to say the opposite. There's no attempt to listen to what is being said.

Often what the media does doesn't matter. For all that I might rail at a lot of our media output, if people really believed all the media pundits said about Tony Blair he would never have survived as long as he has. But I think mental health coverage is different. It is an area where the coverage itself, far from challenging a stigma, can help reinforce it, and in a way that has a direct impact upon the way people with mental health problems feel, are perceived, and the opportunities they are denied. They are often met not with understanding but with abuse and fear. They are three times more likely to be harassed, for example. Four out of 10 employers say they would employ someone with a mental health history. That leaves six out of 10 who wouldn't.

I was incredibly lucky, in my partner, my family, my GP, my workplace and in my real friends when I had a nervous breakdown in 1986 and bouts of depression since. It brought to mind a definition of friendship given me later by Alex Ferguson: someone who walks through the door as others are preparing to put their coats on. It was the scariest time of my life but it made me stronger, fitter, more focussed on the things that really mattered.

And I know without that strength I would not have been able to do the job I did from 1994 to 2003. When Tony Blair asked me to work for him, I said you do know about my breakdown, don't you? You do know I had a drink problem? You do know I still get depression from time to time? He said, "I'm not worried if you're not worried." I said, "What if I'm worried?" He said, "I'm still not worried." I think that is quite an important signal for us to take on board - that if the Prime Minister can take that attitude, so should other employers.

Yet on the day the papers might have bothered to cover Health minister Rosie Winterton's announcement of a new programme to improve understanding of these issues among employers, they carry pieces such as the Telegraph's daft "celebrity disease" story. The press gets interested in illnesses when well-known people suffer from them. And it is true that I, for one, take advantage of the fact that there is a certain interest in me, to bang the drum. But enhanced awareness of mental illness needs far more than the odd so-called celebrity endorsement. It needs awareness from employers and the government of the stigma that remains.

People who suffer from depression are still likely to call in sick with fake flu than admit the truth. I know people with schizophrenia who have held down jobs successfully but who are convinced they would never have got them if they had been open. While I admit the media now covers issues such as depression and anxiety better than it did, there is still a tendency to link mental illness and violence. Most mentally ill people are not violent. Yet their issues tend to be reported only when they are.

I think our mental health services, staff and patients alike, are a fantastic resource of powerful, uplifting emotional stories - the sort of thing I thought the media was meant to be about - but the general impression remains overwhelmingly negative. And that has a real impact. That's why so many people will not tell even friends and family about their illness. They frequently report that the barriers they face because of diagnosis have a bigger impact on their lives than the symptoms.

Challenging stigma and changing attitudes takes time. But it happens. Black people still don't get into our mainstream media as much as they should. But it used to be they were hardly there at all. That has changed. Take gay issues - David Cameron standing up and saying he supported the civic partnership laws Labour had brought in. His audience may have looked as if they had swallowed a lemon but they will get used to it. And so with issues of mental health coverage we should pocket the progress but work for more.

The media has more space than ever but, it seems to me, less ability to handle really complex subjects. The combination of intense competition, negativity, trivialisation, obsession with celebrity, an explosion in outlets, 24-hour news constantly on the lookout for the next whoosh, programmes now only interested in making a splash, rather than genuinely illuminating an issue - it all means there are few places where complexity is dealt with.

Then there are reality television's ghastly, modern-day freak shows, where for titillation and ratings so-called celebrities are created as the nation gorges on the psychodramas they play out. Not a happy scene generally, which is why it is so important to praise the exceptions. Memo to editors and producers: real people like good news too.

This article is based on a speech made to the Mental Health Media Awards on Tuesday