Science journalist Rachel Zamzow compiled a helpful list of problems in media coverage of disability-related issues, and how to avoid them. For the article Zamzow interviewed and quotes several disability writing experts including Beth Haller, Steve Silberman, s.e. smith, Julia Bascom, Alice Wong and the NCDJ’s Kristin Gilger. Click here to read the full report.

“Science journalists should also be careful not to veer too far into the narrative of fixing or curing people with disabilities, says Beth Haller, a professor of journalism and new media at Towson University in Maryland. Seek out stories about easing symptoms that come along with a disability instead of only reporting on efforts to decode its cause. “Those kinds of stories are not about a cure, but they’re about improving people’s lives through medicine and science, and it’s not about changing who they are,” she says. For example, a story about a possible treatment for tremors is probably more directly beneficial to people with Parkinson’s disease than one about a series of candidate gene studies, though both have their scientific merits.”