Media

International News

Want to tell stories at the intersection of climate change and disability justice? Tips by Áine Kelly-Costello, ideas for your next story, data and resources on climate change and disability justice (Nov, Reframing Disability)

Advertising Disability a book on how advertising shapes attitudes towards disability:

“The research presented in the book provides a much-needed examination of the ways in which disability and mental health issues are depicted in different types of advertising, including charity 'sadvertisements', direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements and 'pro-diversity' brand campaigns. Textual analyses of advertisements from the eighteenth century onwards reveal how advertising reinforces barriers facing disabled people, such as stigmatising attitudes, ableist beauty 'ideals', inclusionism and the unstable crutch of charity.” (Jun, Routledge)

How to report on disability: 6 tips for journalists (Apr, LFTW)

Nothing About Us Without Us An international survey of disabled advocates and case studies from business. “Disability representation in media and marketing matters, yet brands often fall short.” (Link to pdf, Jan, Valuable 500)

Disability equality in the media: a practical manual exploring representation, accessibility, and management. Featuring examples from around the world. (UNESCO)

Stories you won't read elsewhere Disability Debrief stocktake for 2023 on making media for the disability movement. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Disabled People Transforming Media Culture for a More Inclusive World open access book telling “stories of disabled people who have been influential in creating modern mass media.” (2023, Routledge)

Connecting disability to the climate beat tips from the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. (2023, Unbias the News)

How to improve portrayals of people with disabilities in the media. An evidence brief. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

‘A View From Somewhere’ DJP Staff, Partners, and Fellows Reflect on Two Years of “Taking Back the Narrative” on Disability (2023, Disability Justice Project)

A disability lens on world news. The Disability Debrief vision, grounding the news in our lived experiences. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Meet the first-ever accessibility engineer at The Washington Post. (2023, Nieman Lab)

Profiles of those awarded Create Fund grants change how people with disabilities are portrayed in media. (2022, Shuttershock)

Rings of power and privilege: Popular media promotes negative biases towards people with facial differences. (2022, Psychology Today)

It's time for the disabled community to take center stage. (2022, Fortune)

Tips to make your visual journalism more accessible. (2022, International Journalists' Network)

Tech journalism’s accessibility problem:

“Tech newsrooms (The Verge’s very much included) need informed accessibility coverage. They need articles drawing from firsthand experience. They need to do that without heaping the burden on a small group of disabled writers.” (2022, The Verge)

Crip News A great weekly newsletter with weekly updates on arts, culture and politics. Largely US/UK. (2022)

Shutterstock is partnering with disability organizations in a Create Fund for artists from diverse backgrounds that help fill content gaps in stock images, videos and other media. See more on the importance of meaningful visual representation. (2022, Shutterstock)

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Kenya

Interview with Alan Herbert “a Kenyan journalist, social inclusion advocate, and behavior change communications professional.” (2023, Disability Rights Flordia)

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Liberia

Disabled Community Encourages Media Institutions to Highlight Issues Affecting Them including by forming a Journalist Network for Disability Reporting. “Please stand by us, as our success is intertwined with yours. Our journey towards success relies on your advocacy.” (2023, FPA)

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Nigeria

TheCable unveils Nigeria's first disability inclusive news application with assistive features to help access the news. (2023, TheCable)

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Tanzania

Here’s Why Most of Tanzania’s Journalists Shy Away From Disability Reporting (Jul, The Chanzo)

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Uganda

​​Verifying news for the deaf community in Uganda. An initiative training sign language interpreters has wider benefits:

“The WhatsApp group has grown into a community of 400 sign language interpreters, deaf individuals, and their hearing family members. Members share suspicious information they encounter and the sign language interpreters help debunk it.” (May, Reframing Disability)

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India

Countering Ableism In The Paralympics And Disability Sport Coverage “Journalist Aman Misra on mainstreaming non-ableist coverage of Paralympics, acceptance of psychosocial disabilities in newsrooms, WhatsApp accessibility, and recommendations” (Aug, Reframing Disability)

Reframing Disability a newsletter “untangling disability-inclusive narratives” and storytelling. (2023, Priti Salian)

How one Indian radio station is giving ‘a lifeline to people with disabilities’ around the world. “Set up in 2015, the volunteer-run station now has some 50,000 people with disabilities tuning in to its trilingual broadcasts every month”. (2022, This Week in Asia)

A 9-step plan for 'curb-cutting' disability access in India’s news and newsrooms. A paper on the experiences of journalists with disabilities and what more can be done. (2022, Reuters Institute)

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Indonesia

Meet Two Disability Justice Project Fellows Modeling Inclusive Storytelling. (2022, Disability Rights Fund)

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Belgium

Ableism, media and society: how media participates in the marginalization of people with disabilities. (In French, Sep, Média Animation)

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Switzerland

Profession: disabled:

“12 years in journalism, 348 applications, 4 job interviews and zero fixed contracts. If the media encourage him to “advance ‘his’ cause”, why don’t they hire him? Malick Reinhard denounces the hypocrisy of the professional world regarding disability.” (Translated from French, Jul, Sous Les Roues)

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Ukraine

Disability equality for Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction ”UNESCO sensitizes and guides dozens of Ukrainian media in this pivotal transformation for the country’s recovery and reconstruction process.” (Oct, UNESCO)

UNDP helps develop methodological recommendations for ensuring accessibility in the media sector. (Aug, UNDP)

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United Kingdom

A new wave of disability media Debrief feature on navigating tensions between art, activism and access. (May, Disability Debrief)

How To Report On Disability Responsibly In Journalism “How we tell stories about disabled experiences matters. Bad reporting directly affects how non-disabled people treat us in the real world, from people in our daily lives to politicians writing policy.” (2023, Journo Resources)

Disability in Advertising: Is Representation Finally Improving? (2023, Just Copy)

The media are failing disabled people. “Lucy Webster explains why – and how they can do better” (2022, Tortoise)

BBC Unveils Latest Statistics on Disability, Ethnicity Representation. “53% of teams monitored achieving their targets for disability representation, an increase of 35 percentage points over the last year and a half.” (2022, Variety)

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United States

I’m Co-Founding a Feminist Media Collective: Here’s Why Disability Will Be All Over It from the Start. Launching the Flytrap. (Nov, Disability Visibility Project)

A guide for reporting on how young disabled and chronically ill people use online communities. (Sep, J-Source)

How Young Disabled and Chronically Ill People Use Online Communities A Guide for Reporting. (Aug, Julia Métraux)

An Editor Who Makes Times Visuals Accessible to All “Jaime Tanner, The New York Times’s first accessibility visuals editor, wants to remove barriers to make sure readers with disabilities can engage with Times visual journalism.” (Mar, New York Times)

Reporting Guide to Investigating Disability Issues “Virtually every reporting beat has a disability angle.” (Jan, Global Investigative Journalism Network)

The Media, Disability, and Me ‘Working in media has always been an uphill battle for disabled writers, but an ever-shrinking industry gives “hard” a whole new meaning.’ (2023, The Nation)

Winners announced for Excellence in Disability Reporting awards. (2023, ASU Cronkite School)

Disabled Authors Deserve, and Demand, More “I believe in the power of storytelling and the perspectives, skills, and expertise of disabled people. In the future, I hope the publishing industry will finally reflect and welcome all of us.” (2023, Publshers Weekly)

Day Al-Mohamed on why media created by disabled artists is so important. (2023, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

Ableism, inaccessibility prevail in field of journalism (2023, The Badger Herald)

People with disabilities aren't often seen in stock photos. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is changing that. (2023, NPR)

Guide to Investigating Disability Issues (2023, Global Investigative Journalism Network)

How public radio stations can serve deaf audiences. “Two public radio stations looking to improve the accessibility of their broadcasts for the deaf and hard of hearing have found new ways to provide live captioning of their programming.” (2022, Current)

Representation in media: Closing the inclusion gap for people with disabilities (2022, Nielsen)

Language, Please: a style guide for journalists that includes a section on Disabilities, Neurodiversity, and Chronic Illness (2022, Language, Please)

Disability Matters: A toolkit for newsrooms to better serve the disability community (2022, Reynolds Journalism Institute)

Short video campaign Spotlights Black Disabled Creatives (2022, Respect Ability)

How to Report With Care on Disability.

"Although I was happy to learn that Starbucks was trying to be more inclusive, to me, hiring people with disabilities isn’t a big news story — and neither is a corporation making one store accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing customers. I felt that the real story was how some of those workers had master’s degrees, yet they had trouble finding jobs elsewhere because of their disability." (2022, NYT)

The Squeaky Wheel: a brilliant parody disability news site - think the Onion, but for us (2022)

Three disability questions every editor should ask (2021, RJI)

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Australia

Shaping Perceptions: How Australian Media Reports on Ageing. (Oct, Australian Human Rights Commission)

Five disability-led Australian podcasts that are a must listen. (2023, ABC News)

‘Volunteering has made a big impact on my career’: The ABC’s disability affairs reporter Nas Campanella shares her story. (2023, The Australian Volunteers Program)

Vanessa Vlajkovic is a subeditor at ABC News. She's also Deafblind, here's how she does her job. (2023, ABC News)

Representations as Violence: When the News Reports on Homicides of Disabled People. “When such murders are reported in the news, disabled people as full subjects fade away, portrayed as objects of care and suffering; their murders are routinely presented as an understandable if tragic response by ‘overwhelmed’ carers.” (2023, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy)

Australian advertisers striving for inclusiveness through disability representation. (2022, ABC News)

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New Zealand

First reporter with cerebral palsy breaks down barriers, “Whakaata Māori has made media history by having a journalist affected by cerebral palsy produce a story for television with his voice and subtitles.” (2023, Te Ao)

D*List editorial values launching a new disability magazine. (2023, D*List) The new home of disability culture in Aotearoa. (The Spinoff)

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Pacific

Capturing Vision Through Sound and Touch Disability Justice Project Fellows Harness iPhone Technology to Spotlight Climate Crisis in the Pacific. (Jan, Disability Justice Project)

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Brazil

Portraits of Brazil with Disability A new podcast exploring a range of disability issues (in Portuguese, with transcription, 2022)

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