Through a partnership with the NCDJ and the Ford Foundation, The New York Times is accepting applications for a reporting fellow who will explore what it means to live with a disability in America.
The fellow will work for a year on the Times’ National desk, focusing on reporting that illuminates and explains issues facing people living with disabilities. The fellow also will take some general assignment breaking news shifts and will receive coaching from the NCDJ and mentoring by a Times journalist with expertise on the topic.
The NCDJ is joining with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability to host a panel on journalism and disability rights on Tuesday, Nov. 9, from 2 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. (EST) via Zoom
Join panelists Joe Shapiro, NPR News investigations correspondent; Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, professor emerita of English and bioethics, Emory University; Eric Garcia, senior Washington correspondent, The Independent; and Amanda Morris, disability reporting fellow, The New York Times, for this important discussion on how to improve representation of people with disabilities in all forms of media.
Through her TikTok account, Marcela Marañon–who advocates for global wheelchair access–provides motivational content for others living with disabilities. Read more here.
A BuzzFeed News investigation found that in 130 of the 200 total guardianship situations examined, wards were exposed to financial exploitation and 110 may have suffered abuse or neglect. However, no comprehensive data exists on the guardianship system and courts in many states keep case documents under seal. Full story here.
By changing the way they post to social media and considering how people navigate the digital world differently, news organizations can connect with their audiences in a more compassionate way. Full story here.
The National Center on Disability and Journalism and the National Press Photographers Association will host a panel discussion on journalism and disability Oct. 6 at 8:30 p.m. EST.
The session will focus on how disabilities can affect those seeking to get ahead in the visual journalism industry, how to navigate careers with disabilities and how to improve media coverage of individuals with disabilities.
The session will be moderated by Kristin Gilger, director of the NCDJ and Reynolds Professor in Business Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
David Allbritton, senior photojournalist at CNN with over 30 years of experience in the news industry. In 1995, while covering the Balkan War for CNN in Sarajevo, he sustained life-threatening injuries when a 500-pound bomb blew up at the television center.
Ari Golub, staff photographer and visual storyteller for George Washington University’s student-run, independent paper, The GW Hatchet, and the President of GW’s Disabled Students Collective. He is an individual with autism.
Evan Halpop, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he is majoring in journalism with an emphasis in broadcast, print and web. He lives with a form of autism and advocates for inclusion for all.
Amanda Morris, the first disability reporting fellow at The New York Times. She previously reported for The Arizona Republic in Phoenix and covered politics for The Associated Press. As someone with a hearing loss, she grew up regularly using American Sign Language with her two deaf parents.
Cara Reedy, program manager for Disability Media Alliance Project at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF). She previously worked at CNN producing documentaries and writing for CNN digital, and she is the co-producer of a short documentary, “Dwarfism and Me,” which explores the treatment of Dwarfs in American society.
Bruce Thorson, associate professor at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He previously spent 25 years in newspaper photojournalism. As a young man, he sustained permanent physical injuries in a motorcycle accident.
Linda Tirado, a freelance photojournalist who also is a book author and has written for The Guardian and The Daily Beast. She was shot in the face last year while covering the civil unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd, leaving her partially blind.
Hannah Wise is on a mission to improve the coverage of disability in the U.S. and make sure news is accessible to the more than 6 million Americans who live with a disability.
Wise is one of eight Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship recipients for the 2021-22 academic year. Formerly a social strategy editor at The New York Times, Wise brings to the project years of experience building relationships between journalists and the communities they cover at the Times and the Dallas Morning News.
For her fellowship at the University of Missouri, she is creating a toolkit to help newsrooms understand how to better cover disability and how to make news products more accessible.
“Every beat is a disability beat, and not just around disability awareness,” Wise said. “It is our job as journalists to speak with accuracy and avoid euphemism, and I think that there’s a big opportunity across the industry for us to raise the bar.”
Part of her project entails creating a form for news organizations to use to find out what questions readers have about disability and what local and national coverage they would like to see.
“We want to make sure that we are providing the information that people want and need,” she said. “The best way to do that is to ask them: What do you want and need?”
In addition to helping news organizations improve their coverage of disability, she hopes to help them learn and use accessibility technology, such as alt text, captions and screen readers.
Wise said part of the challenge is that people are uncomfortable dealing with disability, and journalists are no exception. “Unless you have a disability or someone in your sphere has one, then people are just kind of like, ‘I don’t want to offend anyone’,” she said.
She said the current pandemic makes it more important than ever for journalists to include perspectives from the disability community in their stories.
“I view my job as a journalist to help my community and my readers live smarter, healthier, happier, and more equitable lives,” she said. “At the core, our job is to provide information that people can then take and digest and then inform whatever decision they are going to make.”
A Center for Public Integrity analysis of U.S. Department of Education data found that school policing disproportionately affects students with disabilities, among other minority groups. Read the full story here.
The National Center on Disability and Journalism at Arizona State University has released an updated version of its disability language style guide in both English and Spanish for journalists and professionals who report or write about people living with disabilities.
The guide offers information and advice on nearly 100 commonly used words or terms — from “able-bodied” to “wheelchair-bound.”
