News Commentary: Improving Reporting on Disability
Or: How to Tell Disability Stories More Accurately
Image Description: A person sits on a bench holding up a newspaper in front of them to read.
Quality reporting about disability issues in mainstream media is sparse. It’s still very common for me to see stories about a disabled person “overcoming” their disability to do a regular thing (like go to prom or open a bakery). The coverage trends are predominantly: inspiration ‘porn’ stories (about disabled people doing regular human things), pity stories (about how a disabled person can’t enjoy or participate in life in some way without examining the structural discrimination and exclusion that is causing the problem), or most often — ignoring the existence of disability altogether.
The reason why good (or bad, as the most common case may be) disability reporting matters is because if people see disabled people in the news and reported accurately as a part of the human experience it can help debunk many aspects of the pernicious disability bias in our society. The better the reporting on disability, the better the humanizing, and hopefully the growing understanding and acceptance of disabled people throughout society.
Excellent Disability Reporting Lives!
Thankfully there are some terrific examples of reporters doing an excellent job covering disability. While they aren’t yet in the majority of mainstream media coverage, they are paving the way and raising the bar:
If you want to experience well-researched reporting that reflects disability honestly (without the inspiration porn or pity lenses) then I recommend following these reporters. (As an aside, if you know of any others please drop a comment here or email me as I am interested in adding to this list.)
All Stories Are Disability Stories
In my view, every reporting story could be or potentially include disability (I’m not saying they all have to, but they could). Hear me out…
Anyone can become disabled and people with disabilities are everywhere (and just want to live their lives like anyone else). So, a story about housing could include the problems in finding accessible, affordable housing. A story about transportation could include the problems with scarce accessible transportation options. A story about economics could include the disproportionate impacts on people with disabilities, such as their challenges finding and retaining employment (due to inaccessibility and discrimination), or how inflation often hits them harder due to typically more limited incomes. A story about war or conflict could include coverage about how people with disabilities struggle to survive during or how people injured in a conflict acquire new disabilities. And so forth.
There is always a disability angle, but most of the time it goes unobserved or uncovered by most mainstream media reporting. One of the things I enjoy about the reporters listed above is that they see these stories and write them. They don’t all write exclusively about disability, but it is frequently a part or even an entire story.
Tips on How to Improve Disability News Coverage
If we want to break things down to understand how to better cover disability, here’s some tips gathered from articles from Shruti Rajkumar and Amanda Morris:
Avoid ableist tropes. Like the inspiration porn stories and the pity stories. Dig deeper to debunk and understand the structures and practices that exclude people with disabilities from society. Don’t resort to the easy and superficial emotions.
Understand that disabled people are diverse. Sure, there may be commonalities across the disability experience, but even a group of individuals with the same disability will have difference. For example, my experience with rheumatoid arthritis and the resulting disabilities is much more severe than most people with the same condition. Same with just about any disability — there is a wide variety, so it is better to explore this deeper with research and interviews than to make casual assumptions. Disabled people’s experience and perspective will also vary by age, sexuality, gender, race, culture, and more (a concept also known as intersectionality).
Don’t de-humanize disabled people. Check your own biases. Disabled people have their own personalities, character strengths and weaknesses, and choices. They possess autonomy and shouldn’t necessarily be considered lesser or weaker due to their disability. Don’t disempower them with language. For example: “wheelchair bound” is both frequently inaccurate and insulting while “wheelchair user” describes accurately a tool they use for mobility. When interviewing disabled people, ask them how they prefer to be described and use their words. Perhaps the simplest way to put it: disabled people are just people (for both better and worse).
Place disabled people at the center of disability stories. This sounds basic, but there’s plenty of reporting that talks about people with disabilities that declines to actually quote or interview them. Would we do that to or about anyone else? Nope! So don’t do this with disabled people. As an addendum: do your homework to understand the basics of disability rights and the challenges disabled people regularly face. If you interview them without this basic understanding, they will know it and the reporting will reflect this ignorance.
Understand that disability is a natural human experience that is not something to be solved and cured. This is describing the essence of my newsletter that explores how disability is everywhere and cannot be erased (as much as some humans try). A significant number of disabled people have bad feelings towards the medical world, not just because of poor and discriminatory treatment, but because the general approach is to cure or eliminate disability. For example: as much as I would like not having chronic pain, I don’t want to erase my disability from my life because it has enriched me in innumerable ways. It has shaped my life and who I am — let’s not try to pretend it is not there or that my life experience is not valuable. Also, attempted erasure is impractical. Diseases and accidents happen, so disability will always be a part of the human experience. Let’s embrace and include this diversity in our society.
Do you have other tips or thoughts on how reporting on disability can be improved? (Certainly, more of it in general would be good too!) Email me with your favorite disability media stories, reporters, and ideas for how we can tell the disability story better.
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This is top notch as always, Kelly. It's so important to praise the good, as well as exposing the bad!
I just tried to give subscriptions to two more friends and I did send them the link, but I don't think I subscribed. I will go back and look harder for that link.