Posted on: , Nic Lindh
Women’s eNews is thrilled to announce its selection of The Loreen Arbus Accessibility is Fundamental* Fellows for 2020! This inaugural fellowship has been created to train women with disabilities as professional journalists so that they may write, research and report on the most crucial issues impacting the disabilities community.
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
PHOENIX – April Reed remembers what it used to be like before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.
Reed remembers her father, who wears hearing aids, telling her how he was turned away from a job interview. She remembers a colleague hoping every day that the bus would be wheelchair-accessible when it came by, so she could go about her day. She remembers another colleague with a master’s degree but an obvious physical disability that cost him his job.
The ADA, signed 30 years ago Sunday, changed all that.
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
From first-person stories of living with a disability to a virtual forum on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their lives, public media is spotlighting the experiences of people with disabilities during July as the Americans with Disabilities Act turns 30.
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
Three writers share how they revealed their disability, to a family member, to a love interest on a dating app and to oneself.
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
ProPublica and The Arizona Daily Star are spending the year investigating barriers to services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Arizona. We’re making it a priority to get to know the people we’re writing about and include their firsthand perspectives.
Posted on: , Jamar Younger
For many people who are deaf or hard of hearing, lip reading, facial expressions and body language are vital to communication, but protective face masks and remote work and school meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 have made it more difficult.
More than 1.1 million people in Arizona are hard of hearing, and more than 20,000 are deaf, according to the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a number of inequalities in our society related to race, gender, class, legal status and age. However, conspicuously missing from much of the media coverage on these issues are the stories of how the crisis is affecting the disabled community.
Read the full article here: https://asunow.asu.edu/20200612-sun-devil-life-living-disability-during-pandemic
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
The Arizona Daily Star and ProPublica want to hear about your experiences with intellectual and developmental disabilities services. Join storytelling coaches, journalists and the Detour Company Theatre on July 8 to get involved.
Read the full article here: https://https://www.propublica.org/article/arizonans-share-your-story-about-intellectual-and-developmental-disabilities-at-our-virtual-event
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
May 27, 2020
The National Center on Disability and Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University today launched a campaign to encourage news coverage of people with disabilities in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The campaign consists of 30 story suggestions for journalists to consider that call attention to the changes brought about by passage of the ADA and the challenges that remain. The story ideas range from how disability communities are affected by COVID-19 to how changes in technology have transformed the lives of many living with disabilities.
A story suggestion is being released on Twitter (#NCDJ30for30) and Facebook (@ASUNCDJ) every other day, from May 27 to July 26, the anniversary of the ADA. They also will be archived on the NCDJ website at https://ncdj.org/ncdj30for30/.
“We’re hoping this campaign sparks more coverage of people with disabilities and disability issues,” said NCDJ Executive Director Kristin Gilger, senior associate dean at the Cronkite School. “People with disabilities make up nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population, yet their stories are often overlooked. The 30th anniversary of the ADA is the perfect time to re-balance that equation.”
The ideas were drawn from studies and published articles as well as suggestions from members of the NCDJ advisory board, which consists of journalists, scholars and members of the disability community. Cronkite graduate student Molly Duerig compiled the information and created the campaign.
The landmark civil rights legislation prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications and access to state and local government programs and services. It defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities.”
President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law on July 26, 1990. It was amended and updated in 2008.
The NCDJ has been part of the Cronkite School since 2008. The organization provides support and guidance for journalists as they cover disabilities through the publication of a popular disability language style guide, lists of resources and experts, and training materials. It also manages a journalism contest that recognizes the best disability reporting in the country each year.
For more information, contact: Kristin Gilger, NCDJ Executive Editor, at kristin.gilger@asu.edu.
Posted on: , Nic Lindh
May 15, 2020
The National Center on Disability and Journalism is now accepting entries for the 2020 Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability, the only journalism contest devoted exclusively to disability coverage.
Winners will receive a total of $8,000 in cash awards for first-, second- and third-place finishes in large media and small media categories. First-place winners in each category will be awarded $2,500 and invited to give a public lecture for the Cronkite School in fall 2020. Second-place winners will receive $1,000, third-place winners $500.
Journalists working in digital, print and broadcast media are eligible to enter. Entries are accepted from outside the U.S., although the work submitted must be in English. There is no entry fee.
Entries must have been published or aired between July 1, 2019, and July 31, 2020. The deadline to enter is Aug. 17, 2020. For more information and to enter, go to https://ncdj.org/contest/.
Entries are judged by professional journalists and experts on disability issues. Past judges have included “PBS NewsHour” anchor Judy Woodruff; Tony Coelho, former six-term U.S. congressman from California and the primary sponsor of the Americans With Disabilities Act; former Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Leon Dash; and Daniel Burke, CNN religion editor.
The top 2019 award in the large media category went to an investigation into a New York City initiative to let those with severe mental illnesses live on their own. The project was a collaboration of ProPublica, The New York Times and PBS Frontline. The first-place winner in the small media category was a collaborative documentary between the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Milwaukee PBS. The program followed the lives of four young people from Wisconsin as they navigated mental health challenges. To read more about the 2019 award-winners, visit https://cronkite.asu.edu/news-and-events/news/propublica-and-pbs-frontline-milwaukee-journal-sentinel-and-milwaukee-pbs-win.
For all the past winners, visit https://ncdj.org/contest/ncdj-contest-archive/.
The Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability is administered each year by the NCDJ, which is part of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication 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.
Schneider, who has been blind since birth, said she hopes the award will help journalists improve their coverage of disability issues, moving beyond “inspirational” stories that don’t accurately represent the lives of people with disabilities. “That kind of stuff is remarkable, but that’s not life as most of us live it,” she said.
The NCDJ, which has been housed at the Cronkite School since 2008, offers resources and materials for journalists covering disability issues and topics, including a widely used disability language stylebook. For more information, visit the NCDJ’s website at https://ncdj.org.
