Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
The digital divide, the division between individuals who have access to computers and high-speed internet and those who do not, is still blocking millions of Americans from working and learning at home, a year after COVID-19 forced the nation to operate online.
Read the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
NCDJ board member Amy Silverman worked with KJZZ in Arizona to produce a segment for their program, The Show, last week. In the segment Matt Hoie, a person on the autism spectrum, shared why he is eager to get his first vaccine. Hoie described his hopes for life after the vaccine and discussed how COVID-19 has impacted his life.
Listen to the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
By Kasey Brammell
The National Center on Disability and Journalism at Arizona State University is partnering with The New York Times to create a new fellowship program to enhance coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities.
The program, to launch later this year, will place an early-career journalist in The Times newsroom each year for the next two years to develop expertise and report on a range of disability issues. It is set to be funded by philanthropy.
The fellow will be part of a larger fellowship cohort at The Times and will receive mentoring from both a Times’ staff member with expertise in covering disabilities and the NCDJ, which provides support and advice to journalists around the world who cover such issues. The NCDJ also will provide training to the Times’ newsroom.
Nearly one in five people in the United States lives with a disability, but these issues are undercovered, said Ted Kim, director of Early Career Journalism Strategy and Recruiting for The New York Times. “Few avenues exist to develop journalistic expertise on disability issues because such beats do not exist at most news outlets,” he said. “The lack of coverage, in turn, results in a lack of awareness about issues that affect a large portion of the country.”
Kristin Gilger, interim dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU and director of the NCDJ, echoed the need for more and better coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities. “This fellowship program is an important step in the right direction at one of the nation’s top media institutions,” she said.
The application is now open for the first fellow, who will join The Times in June. Preference will be given to promising early-career journalists who also have experience living with a disability or who have developed a deep understanding of disability through the experiences of a family member or loved one. The deadline to submit an application is 5 p.m., New York Time, on March 31, 2021. Applicants are advised to submit well before the deadline.
The fellows will be part of The New York Times Fellowship program , a talent pipeline initiative started in 2019 to seed and diversify the next generation of journalists in local newsrooms across America. It trains journalists in reporting, audio, visual and other disciplines.
The National Center on Disability and Journalism is a service of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU. For the past 12 years at Cronkite, the center has provided support and training for journalists and other communications professionals with the goal of improving media coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
Disabled people make up 20% of the U.S. population but take up little space on mastheads and in coverage. Why?
Read the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
In 2018, with support from the Ford Foundation, the Disability Justice Initiative and the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress developed their “Courageous Conversations” work to bring together leaders across the disability rights and justice movement and the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements. Staff of the Disability Justice and Women’s Initiatives convened a series of conversations at conferences including Let’s Talk About Sex, The Abortion Care Network, and the Association of Rural Independent Living, among others to talk about how to better collaborate across the two spaces. The authors created this column and the companion resource guide as tools that can be easily adopted or adapted by those wanting to bring these communities together for a nuanced discussion of sexual violence and disabled people.
Reach the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
If confirmed by the Senate to the cabinet role, current Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona could play a significant role in special education at a time when advocates fear that many students with disabilities have been left behind during rolling school closures and remote instruction. Cardona met with advocates for students with disabilities who voiced concerns about issues ranging from school discipline to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on special education services.
Read the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
Rebecca Cokley, director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress, a Ford grantee. She shares some key steps any organization can take to become more inclusive.
Watch the full video here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
In Arizona, ProPublica teamed up with the Arizona Daily Star to sponsor a story by Amy Silverman that looked into why the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities turned down thousands of people who sought assistance.
That road eventually led to Silverman’s lengthy and at times complicated story being translated into plain language, the first time ProPublica (or any other news outlet, as far as I can tell) created a plain language version of a story in an attempt to increase its accessibility for disabled readers.
Read the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
People with disabilities living in different states aren’t sure when they will be able to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to a lack of clarity.
Read the full story here.
Posted on: , Catie Cheshire
In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Nonprofit Quarterly joined forces with a number of our partners, from Community Change to Human Rights Watch, each at different stages in their journeys toward inclusion. Together, they laid out five concrete actions organizations of any kind can take to advance disability inclusion and move closer to equity and justice.
