The U.S. Senate will reconsider an international disability rights treaty after it was defeated in a vote last December largely across party lines. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will discuss the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at a hearing on Tuesday. Vice President Joe Biden met with disability advocates on Friday to discuss the administration’s support of the treaty. Read more.
A hard-hitting investigation into police treatment of the developmentally disabled. A story about a Danish company that has found a way to use the talents of autistic workers. A video that takes viewers into the life of a blind athlete. An intense narrative about the life of a famed mountaineer who was paralyzed in a helicopter crash.
These are the stories that were honored with the first Katherine Schneider Journalism Awards for Excellence in Reporting on Disability. Submissions were judged on how they went beyond the ordinary in covering the issues faced by people living with disabilities..
Judges for the contest said they were astounded at the quality and variety of the 72 entries they reviewed from all over the world. But what also struck them were the stories that weren’t told — or at least those that weren’t told fully.
Many of the entries contained tantalizing hints of other stories that could be pursued by journalists seeking to report in new and interesting ways on disability issues and people with disabilities.
One of the judges, Leon Dash, Swanlund Chair Professor of Journalism and the Director of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said he was struck by an info-graphic on accessibility included in the text of a radio piece submitted by NPR affiliate KUNC in Northern Colorado. “Technology for Life: How Students with Disabilities are Attending College at Record Rates.”
Dash said the graphic broke down access to support services for students with disabilities along ethnic lines. It shows that of those students with disabilities who go on to attend graduate school, 66 percent are Caucasian. African-American and Hispanic students made up just 13 percent and 12 percent, respectively.
“That’s a significant story in the disability community that’s rarely talked about or even written about,” Dash said.
Dash, who is working on a documentary film about disabilities, said minorities are often absent in coverage of disability issues and the disabled community.
“I interviewed a lot of heavy hitters in the disability rights movement, and they all volunteered to me that the disability rights movement is a white movement,” Dash said. “It takes its strategy, focus and confrontational tactics from the African- American civil rights movement, but it’s a white movement.”
Judge Tim McGuire, Frank Russell Chair of Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, said disability issues often are covered at a national level, but there is a lot of room for journalists to localize those stories to their communities.
McGuire said several stories submitted to the contest could be told found in different contexts and locations. For example, a piece from The Wilmington Star News about disabled people facing a greater risk of sexual assault and a series from The Dallas Morning News about an 8-year-old boy embracing the challenge of losing his vision are both stories that could be done elsewhere, he said.
“You could go find that prototype in your community,” McGuire said.
Additionally, McGuire said investigating how technology is making it easier for disabled students to go to school “is another fine story for localization,” while accessibility, or lack there of, at doctors’ offices “could stand good investigation” locally.
Cyndi Jones, former director of The Center for an Accessible Society, a national project that focuses public attention on disability and independent living issues, said she would be interested in seeing more media coverage of employment for the disabled.
Jones said some people with disabilities are making up to $30 an hour, as was the case with the subject of the story “The Autism Advantage,” the second-place NCDJ award winner from The New York Times Magazine. On the other hand, people with developmental disabilities employed at sheltered workshops, or government-contracted facilities that hire people with disabilities, make below minimum wage, Jones said.
She also suggested more coverage about how the disability community has been affected by the recent economic downturn.
“You can count on a flood of people applying for Social Security Disability Insurance because if they’re laid off, their chances of being hired again are slim to none,” Jones said of aging baby boomers with disabilities. People who are older and who also have a disability face greater workplace discrimination and therefore have a tough time finding a job after being laid off, she said.
In addition, Jones talked about covering the “whole person” when profiling people with disabilities. She said journalists are more likely to do heartwarming stories about people with disabilities overcoming adversity than they are to do stories about criminal activities of people with disabilities. Jones used the example of South African double amputee Olympic sprint runner Oscar Pistorius, who has been charged with murdering his girlfriend.
“We are not seeing the whole person,” she said. “I’d expect to see the other side of the story as well.”
Winning stories from the 2012-2013 contest and other examples of excellent disability reporting are available on the NCDJ website at ncdj.org.
Entries for the 2013-2014 Katherine Schneider Journalism Awards will be accepted beginning May 1, 2014. Submissions from print or online publications, radio or television outlets will be accepted. Entries must be published or aired between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014.
The goal of the National Center on Disability and Journalism is to provide support to journalists covering the disability community. While the NCDJ is not an advocacy group, its aim is to help set a standard for disability reporting. The center’s website maintains a disability style guide and provides resources such as best practices tips sheets for reporters covering disability issues.
The Jenny Hatch Project is a new initiative aimed at establishing and lobbying for alternative methods of traditional guardianship for people with disabilities. The center was named for Jenny Hatch, a 29-year-old Virginia woman with Down syndrome, who won the legal right this year to make choices about where she lives and works. Hatch’s mother had sought guardianship with the stipulation that Hatch would continue living in a group home. Read more.
Vice President Joe Biden said it’s “astounding” what the country does not know and what it will learn about mental illness and disorders at the inaugural gala of the Kennedy Forum on mental health in Massachusetts Wednesday night. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also spoke at the conference marking the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy signing a law funding mental health centers. She applauded the new federal health care law for requiring insurers to provide more equal coverage of mental health disorders. Read more.
Habilitation, or supplying people with physical and developmental disabilities with the means of developing independence through treatment, is among the “10 essential benefits” that must be provided through plans offered under the Affordable Care Act. What that actually means for the disabled community remains to be seen due to several varying factors. The federal health care law mandates coverage of habilitation services but leaves it up to states to decide what and how much will be covered. Moreover, the problems that have plagued the online health exchanges are keeping many people from reading exactly what insurers on the health exchanges are covered. Read more.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to clarify the legal standard of mental disability in regard to death penalty cases. The case to be heard involves a Florida man convicted of murder who scored one point above the cut-off on an IQ test, landing him on death row. Justices will decide whether states can rely entirely on a single IQ test when determining mental disability. Read more.
A new study out of Sweden shows there is no link between celiac disease and an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis. However, researchers did find a connection between ASD and a positive blood test for celiac disease, which alone is not enough to positively diagnose someone with the condition, a serious immune disorder involving extreme sensitivity to gluten. This could explain why some parents of children with autism maintain a strict gluten-free diet. Read more.
A majority of the nation’s Amtrak stations remain difficult to navigate for people with disabilities. According to a new report from the National Disabilities Rights Network, of the 94 stations inspected in 25 states and the District of Columbia, accessibility problems were found in 89. Some had “major barriers,” which deter potential riders with disabilities from using the rail system at all. Read more.
Housing initiatives designed for adults with autism are springing up around the country. This New York Times report focuses on Sweetwater Spectrum, a $10.4 million project in the heart of California wine country. Sixteen adults spanning the full range of autism reside at Sweetwater, where they cook, plan social activities, exercise and learn to live “a life with purpose.” Read more.
A series exposing the routine failure on the part of police to protect the developmentally disabled at California care institutions is the inaugural winner of the Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability.
California Watch, part of The Center for Investigative Reporting, is the recipient of the international award, the first devoted exclusively to disability coverage. The award includes a $5,000 prize and is administered by the National Center on Disability and Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University under a grant from Schneider, a retired clinical psychologist who also supports the Schneider Family Book Awards.
CIR’s award-winning package of stories, “Broken Shield,” was written and reported by Ryan Gabrielson. Carrie Ching and Marina Luz produced an accompanying animated video, titled “In Jennifer’s Room.”
Ryan Gabrielson
“With painstaking thoroughness and dynamic storytelling, reporter Ryan Gabrielson showed how a California police force designed to protect developmentally disabled patients failed to investigate horrible, violent abuse of patients,” said contest judge Tim McGuire, the Frank Russell Chair of Journalism at the Cronkite School. “The stories make you mad and break your heart at the same time. And, most important, they got real results. Severely developmentally disabled patients are safer today because of Gabrielson’s work.”
The second-place award, with a $1,500 prize, went to Gareth Cook for his New York Times Magazine piece “The Autism Advantage.” The story details how autistic workers at one innovative Danish company are being drawn into the modern economy and excelling at their jobs.
Two honorable mention prizes of $500 each also were awarded. They went to Daphnee Denis and Hoda Emam for a video documentary, “Playing by Ear.” The video, which focuses on one man’s dedication to goalball, a fast-paced sport designed for the visually impaired, was published at Narratively, a platform developed in 2012 that features in-depth stories around a different theme each week. The site was named one of Time magazine’s 50 Best Websites of 2013.
The second honorable mention award went to Broughton Coburn for a long-form piece he wrote for Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. “Second Chapter: A Portrait of Barry Corbet” chronicles how a famed mountaineer continued to enjoy the outdoors after a helicopter crash left him paralyzed from the waist down.
The first-place entry, “Broken Shield,” also was a 2013 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Additionally, it won a 2012 George Polk Award and a 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. Gabrielson will accept the Schneider Award and discuss his work as part of the “Must See Mondays” speaker series at the Cronkite School on Nov. 25 at 7 p.m.
Judges reviewed 72 entries from journalists around the world. In addition to McGuire, the judges were Tony Coelho, former U.S. congressman and primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act; Leon Dash, the Swanlund Chair Professor of Journalism and the director of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Cyndi Jones, former director of The Center for an Accessible Society; and Jennifer Longdon, a disability rights advocate and former chair of the Phoenix Mayor’s Commission on Disability Issues.
“When I first agreed to judge this contest, I thought, ‘Hey, how many entries could there be anyway? Maybe 20, and half worth a second look,’” Jones said. “Well 70-plus entries later, as we began final deliberations, we still had 15 entries on the table, all of which were great. Not easy by any means. The entries were terrific and so varied in disability, slant, topic, style, medium and length. This was a terrifically wonderful problem to have.”
People with some kind of mental or physical disability make up at least 19 percent of the U.S. population; however, people with disabilities are frequently under-covered by the mainstream press or that coverage is inaccurate or incomplete, Schneider said. “The commonest stories are about a cure for a condition or a superhuman who overcomes the disability. I wanted to help highlight good stories and chose to work with the NCDJ and the Cronkite School because of their commitment to fair and accurate journalism that includes diversity.”
The goal of the contest is to help set a standard for disability reporting, said Kristin Gilger, associate dean of the Cronkite School and director of the NCDJ. “We want to hold up as an example work that displays a deep and nuanced understanding of the issues and challenges experienced by the millions of people who live with physical or mental disabilities,” she said. “This year’s winners did that far beyond our expectations, and they did it by telling compelling human stories and by holding power accountable.”
About the Winners
First Place: “Broken Shield”
Ryan Gabrielson covers public safety for The Center for Investigative Reporting. He was a 2009-2010 investigative reporting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, his reporting for the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz., exposed that immigration enforcement by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office undermined criminal investigations. That work was recognized with a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. Gabrielson also has investigated scholarship charities that were committing tax fraud and widespread academic and financial malfeasance at the nation’s largest community college district. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Gabrielson’s work has received numerous national and state honors, including a George Polk Award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award. He began his career at The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, and studied journalism at the University of Arizona.
Carrie Ching is an independent multimedia journalist based in the Bay Area. She spent six years at CIR producing award-winning multimedia and graphic journalism. The “In Jennifer’s Room” graphic video produced by Ching won the 2013 News Emmy for innovative reporting.
Marina Luz did illustrations for the “In Jennifer’s Room” video. She runs her design studio, HONEYLUX, out of Oakland, Calif., where she does illustration, branding and letterpress printing. She is a graduate of Stanford University.
Second Place: “The Autism Advantage”
Gareth Cook is a Pulitzer Prize-winning magazine journalist, a contributor to NewYorker.com and the editor of a new book series, “The Best American Infographics.” His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, NewYorker.com, Wired, Scientific American, Salon and elsewhere. He also is editor of Scientific American’s “Mind Matters” neuroscience blog. Cook has worked in writing and editing positions at The Washington Monthly, Foreign Policy and U.S. News & World Report. He was news editor of The Boston Phoenix before moving to The Boston Globe, where he edited the Globe’s Sunday Ideas section. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he has won a National Academies Communication Award and the Woods Hole Ocean Science Journalism Award. He is a graduate of Brown University.
Honorable Mention: “Playing by Ear”
Daphnee Denis is a French multimedia journalist based in London. A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Cambridge University, she currently works for Monocle 24, the international radio station affiliated with Monocle magazine. Her work also has appeared in Slate, Slate France and other publications. She has held editing and producing positions at video production companies such as Radical Media, Feature Story News and Storyhunter. She was awarded the Nona Balakian award for literary criticism in 2012.
Hoda Emam is news producer and anchor of a daily live business show at Thomson Reuters in New York. Previously, she was a contributor to ABC News, CBS News and the United Nations Population Fund. In addition, she was a Middle East correspondent for a local TV station based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Emam holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism with a concentration in digital media. In 2012, as a Scripps Howard Fellow, Emam traveled to Italy and covered the influx of Libyan refugees in Italy following the recent Libyan revolution. In 2013, she was chosen as a United Nations Foundation Press Fellow. She is currently producing a documentary, “Shot in the Dark,” focusing on a group of visually impaired athletes.
Honorable Mention: “Second Chapter: A Portrait of Barry Corbet”
Broughton Coburn has written articles for New Age, The Denver Post Magazine, Onearth and other magazines. For two of the past three decades, he has lived in the Himalaya of Nepal, Tibet and India, writing and overseeing development and environmental conservation efforts for the World Bank, UNESCO, World Wildlife Fund and other agencies. He has written or edited seven books, including two national bestsellers and a title published by Crown in May of this year, “The Vast Unknown: America’s First Ascent of Everest.” A graduate of Harvard College, Coburn is on the faculty of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference and is a visiting associate professor at Colorado College.
