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.
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.”
Headquartered at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the NCDJ is a national organization that provides support and guidance to journalists and communicators as they cover people with disabilities.
For more than a decade, the NCDJ guide has been a go-to source for professionals around the world seeking to use language about disability that avoids the stereotypes frequently associated with disability.
“Language frames how we see people with disabilities, and our choices matter,” said Kristin Gilger, the center’s director and Reynolds Professor in Business Journalism at the Cronkite School. “What we’re trying to do is provide an authoritative, neutral source of guidance and information that balances the need for sensitivity and accuracy against the journalistic mandate for language that is clear and easily understood by a general audience.”
Gilger said disability can be a difficult topic to cover for journalists, many of whom are unfamiliar with current debates over language choices and what might be considered offensive. For example, there are fierce disagreements about the use of the word “disabled” itself and whether to use “people first” or “identity first” language. The latter has been particularly contentious within the disability community.
In the past, the NCDJ has encouraged the use of people-first language, such as, “a person who has Down syndrome” rather than “a Down syndrome person,” but the revised guide no longer suggests it as a default.
“Even with the caveat that this does not apply to all, we have heard from many people with disabilities who take issue with people-first language,” said Amy Silverman, a Phoenix-based journalist and author who led the effort to revise the guide. “For us, this really emphasizes the fact that no two people are the same — either with regard to disabilities or language preferences. And, so, we are suggesting that people double down to find out how people would like to be described.”
The guide also suggests being sensitive when using words like “disorder,” “impairment,” “abnormality” and “special” to describe the nature of a disability.
“But note that there is no universal agreement on the use of these terms — not even close,” Silverman said. “’Disorder’ is ubiquitous when it comes to medical references, and the same is true for “special” when used in ‘special education,’ so there may be times when it’s appropriate to use them. The word ‘condition’ is often a good substitute that avoids judgment.”
In addition to offering recommendations on language choices, the guide provides a brief background on each word or term and touches on instances in which disability organizations disagree on usage. It also notes whether the word or term is addressed in The Associated Press Stylebook, widely used by journalists around the world as a guide to writing. The AP recently expanded its disability language entries, in part with the guidance of the NCDJ.
The NCDJ was founded in 1998 in San Francisco as the Disability Media Project to raise awareness of how the news media cover people with disabilities. The organization was renamed in 2000 and moved to the Cronkite School in 2009. NCDJ’s disability style guide is available on the organization’s website or as a printable PDF. It is available in both English and Spanish.
The 2020-2021 contest for the Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability is closed for entries. Winners will be notified in early October and will be honored in a live-streamed event Nov. 1 from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
The Schneider Award is administered each year by the Cronkite School’s National Center on Disability and Journalism at Arizona State University. It is supported by a gift from Katherine Schneider, a retired clinical psychologist who also supports the Schneider Family Book Award, honoring the best children’s book each year that captures the disability experience for children and adolescents. That award is administered by the American Library Association.
The Biden administration is waiving $5.8 billion in student loan debt for 323,000 borrowers with severe disabilities, allowing those with disabilities to receive the disability discharges to which they are legally entitled.
People with disabilities were disproportionately affected during the pandemic in unemployment and social isolation, and faced additional difficulties when applying for federal benefits.
Going forward, advocates stress the importance of accurately measuring the effect of the pandemic’s financial, social, and emotional losses through improved data collection.
Let’s start with the good news: Significant depictions of disability on film and television shows have nearly tripled over the past decade compared with the previous 10 years.
Almost all of those titles, however, still don’t feature disabled actors.
The study published Wednesday also showed that television is far behind film when it comes to representation of characters with disabilities.
The Arizona Legislature expanded the criteria for the state’s Silver Alert public notification system to include those with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Municipal police departments are able to request a Silver Alert from the Arizona Department of Public Safety after they’ve exhausted all available resources.
More than 20,000 people, many of them disabled, poor or people of color, were forced to undergo the procedure under the state’s decades-long eugenics program. California is prepared to spend $7.5 million to find and pay an estimated 600 surviving victims of coerced sterilization, both under the eugenics law and in prison.
