Wendland case coverage ‘one-sided,’ charges attorney

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

Jan. 23, 2001 — The Robert Wendland legal case is before California’s Supreme Court, and media coverage is intensifying. A scheduled Time magazine story, an upcoming feature in People magazine and coverage on “The Today Show” are among just those that we have learned about.

Yesterday, ABC’s “Good Morning America” featured a story on the case for the second time in a month. In its Jan. 4 segment, ABC’s Diane Sawyer called the Wendland case the “story of two people, a wife and a mother, fighting over the life of a husband and a son.”

“Seven years ago, Robert Wendland rolled his pickup truck and was left paralyzed and in a coma,” Roger Cossack of CNN’s “Burden of Proof” told Jan. 15 viewers. “Sixteen months later, he became ‘minimally conscious.’ Now Robert Wendland’s wife Rose wants his feeding tube removed. Wendland’s mother opposes this and has asked the court for the right to care for him.”

A number of disability rights groups, including Not Dead Yet, The Brain Injury Assn., Inc., Self Advocates Becoming Empowered, The Arc, ADAPT, N.C.I.L. and the National Spinal Cord Injury Association filed an amicus brief in the case.

Florence Wendland attorney Janie Hickok Siess says media coverage has ignored the disability rights implications of the case. She has charged ABC in particular with being one-sided. On both Jan. 4 and Jan. 22 “Good Morning America” segments, she says, “Florence has been on tape, while Rose has been live with an opportunity to rebut Florence’s commentary.” Siess says that ABC flew Rose Wendland and her children to New York to appear live on the show.

The Wendland case made the front page of the Los Angeles Times Jan. 2, where it was the subject of Legal Affairs writer Maura Dolan’s “Column One” piece (“Out Of A Coma, Into A Twilight” is no longer available free online but can be purchased athttp://www.latimes.com/archives/ ). “This issue is huge,” Oakland lawyer Jon Eisenberg told Dolan. (Eisenberg “represents bioethicists and others who support Rose’s right to make the decision,” wrote Dolan.) “It is going to touch nearly every one of us as we deal with our parents’ aging and our own aging in years to come.”

The most thorough coverage to date has been from CNN’s “Burden of Proof”. A transcript of the Jan. 15 segment, “A Life in Limbo: Should Robert Wendland be Allowed to Die?” is available online athttp://cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/15/bp.00.html

More on Siess’s charges of one-sided coverage can be found online athttp://www.raggededgemagazine.com/extra/wendland012201.htm

IN OTHER ‘RIGHT-TO-DIE’ COVERAGE . . .

On Jan. 18, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Robert Latimer, who confessed to killing his 12-year-old disabled daughter Tracy, will have to spend at least ten years of a life sentence in prison. The decision ends seven years of trials and appeals. A week earlier, the Globe and Mail reported that “73 percent of Canadians believe Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer’s mandatory life sentence for the killing of his severely disabled daughter is too harsh.” The poll results and story can be found athttp://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate/19990111/UPOLLM?tf=RT/HTMLRelatedArticleTemplate.html&cf=RT/config-neutral&slug=UPOLLM&date=19990111&archive=GAM

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Getting it right — and not getting it at all

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

Nov. 21, 2000 — A Nov. 13 Los Angeles Times Times story that largely gets it right about access problems seems to be the result of a reporter who “gets it” about wheelchair access barriers.

The story, which ran in the Metro section of the Orange County Edition, was headlined, “The Safety Zone: 8 Blocks of Hurdles for Wheelchair.” Hicks’ reporting involved going along with a Cal State Fullerton junior who used a motorized wheelchair. “I had interviewed numerous wheelchair users about problems they face trying to get around,” Hicks wrote. “Many of the obstacles, they say, come from lack of awareness from some of the rest of us. But I wanted to see what they were talking about for myself.

“It was quite an education, one I hadn’t expected,” he continues. The education Hicks got he gives to readers without sappiness or the typical comments about “courage” that all too often are found in such stories. Nor did Hicks do what too many reporters have been persuaded at times by advocates to do — get in the wheelchair themselves. Such ploys often backfire, as reporters become overwhelmed and focus more on their feelings than on the problems with access with which they’re presented. Here Hicks covers the territory as a journalist should, keeping his emotions out of it but reporting the problems.

“The first block was fine.

“The second block, the sidewalk was completely barricaded by a pickup parked in someone’s driveway. Which, of course, is against the law. These are public sidewalks. . . ” (Usehttp://www.latimes.com/editions/orange/ocnews/20001113/t000108771.htmlto retrieve the story, which is in the archives but can be read for free for two weeks. The companion story, Hicks’ interviews with wheelchair users, can be retrieved throughhttp://www.latimes.com/editions/orange/ocnews/20001113/t000108761.htmlHicks’ email is jerry.hicks@latimes.com)

“Rather than saying that Hicks ‘gets it,’ I’d say that he’s aware that he doesn’t completely ‘get it’ and so doesn’t have the story written before his investigation,” Chapman University professor Art Blaser told us. “I talked with him via phone when he was putting this story together, and my perception was that he was unusually thoughtful.” Blaser hopes Hicks will do more disability stories in the Times.

The next day the L.A. Times carried another disability story, “Economic Boom Leaves Disabled Workers Behind,” accessible viahttp://www.latimes.com/news/state/updates/lat_disable001118.htm — L.A. Times’ reporter E. Scott Reckard’s piece on the controversial Cornell study we reported on in the 11/7/00 E-letter.

Blaser characterizes the L.A.Times’s ongoing coverage of disability issues as “good but uneven.”

On the same day as Hicks’ piece,” says Blaser,”they ran an op-ed, “Waiting for Danger Can Prove Deadly to the Mentally Ill,” which, says Blaser, “reflects the idea that forced treatment is okay and that lots of people are imprisoned because of not having had forced treatment rather than because they weren’t given a ‘fair trial.'”

This article, accessible viahttp://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20001113/t000108781.htmlrepresents the views of the controversial Treatment Advocacy Center — controversial within the psychiatric survivor movement, that is.

The term “forced treatment” that Blaser uses reflects his own knowledge of the perspective presented by the psychiatric survivor movement, whose members often contend that their group’s positions are taken as being even less credible than the positions taken by the “mainstream” disability rights movement. It is likely that The Times is not fully aware of the controversial nature of Torrey’s statements — perhaps not even aware at all that there are other positions than his on the topic.

For more on the position of the psychiatric survivor movement, read the articles and follow the links at “The Dark Side of Psychiatry” athttp://www.oikos.org/antipsicen.htm#Madness”

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De-institutionalization: do reporters know it’s a trend?

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

Nov. 28, 2000 — “While the number of people with developmental disabilities living in publicly-funded institutions in the U.S. dropped by 65 per cent from 1977 to 1998,” reports Dave Reynold of Inclusion Daily Express, (http://www.InclusionDaily.com) “in Nevada, they increased by 43 percent.”

Reynolds, who tracks media coverage of “inclusion” issues, found that the Las Vegas Sun had done a good job of reporting this in its Nov. 25 story, quoting a particularly telling paragraph from reporter Steve Kanigher: “‘This is another one of those reports done in another part of the country that does not understand the situation in Nevada,’ said Jack Finn, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn.”

The study Finn was referring to was from the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago — a “State of the States in Developmental Disabilities: 2000” report, available at )

Kanigher noted that “Jack Finn, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, had not seen the study but criticized it nonetheless.” Kanigher’s story is online athttp://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2000/nov/25/511084921.html

The trend toward moving people out of institutions has been pushed by the Supreme Court Olmstead decision. (Accessible Society E-Letter 11/14/2000). News stories about state moves toward de-institutionalization, though, rarely cover the story as the national trend it is — and even less often note the role of disability advocates in bringing it about. An exception is a Nov. 16 story from the Associated Press, which did note the Olmstead decision as a pivotal reason behind Indiana’s Gov. Frank O’Bannon’s executive order “calling for the state to create a long-term plan” to serve people with developmental disabilities “in the lest restrictive settings possible,” pointing out that the move was triggered by a lawsuit filed by advocates in wake of the Olmstead decision.

A story from the Nov. 12 New Orleans Times -Picaynue is more typical. Headlined “New Medicaid waiver targets children,” the story reports on a “new Medicaid children’s waiver providing supplemental support to children with significant disabilities … who will leave an institution to return home.” This may or may not have been triggered by the OImstead decision, but we don’t find out from reporter Susan Pic, who also makes no mention of the trend toward in-home services. This is all the more curious since Pic is not herself a reporter but an advocate — the public relations coordinator for the Arc of Greater New Orleans, here writing a weekly column for the paper.

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News coverage causes both problem and solution

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

Dec. 12, 2000 — An admiring newspaper profile on Thanksgiving Day weekend attracted a lot of favorable attention for David Jayne, a Georgia man who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and who occasionally gives talks at his church and civic groups.

It also attracted the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of bureaucrat: After reading reporter Bill Torpy’s story about Jaynes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, officials at Healthfield Home Health service – which since 1997 had sent an attendant to Jayne’s home four times a week to help him get out of bed and shower – notified him that they were cutting off the service. Why? If he could go out and make speeches, Healthfield said, the father of two was no longer “homebound,” thus ineligible for the Medicare-funded services.

That made no sense to Jayne, who said, “I’m not going to stop living just to get shower help four times a week.”

In a Dec. 5 editorial titled “Health care bureaucracy goes awry,” The Journal-Constitution’s outrated editors fumed: “David Jayne has struggled valiantly to overcome the isolation and helplessness brought on by one of the cruelest diseases known to humankind. To deny him essential services to which he ought to be entitled because he refuses to lie still and be a ‘good’ paralytic, as regulations require, flies in the face of simple decency.”

In the weeks that followed, David Jaynes’ representative in Congress was able to get his services restored. That’s good news. But good news for one individual fortunate enough to get news coverage and Congressional attention offers little solace to the thousands of other disabled people who remain captive to a system that, as the Atlanta newspaper said, “flies in the face of simple decency.”

Bill Torpy’s first (Nov. 26) story about Jayne is at:http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/reports/tinman/index.html

And his follow-up story on Dec. 2 about the denial of service is at:http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/news_a382fabab66d2059005c.html

The newspaper’s editorial will be found at:http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/tuesday/opinion_a3c2197aa178c1af007c.html

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Looking back at year’s media coverage of disability issues

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

Dec. 19, 2000 — At year’s end, a look back at 2000 media coverage of disability issues finds a mixed record. On the one hand, the major disability story of the year — the 10th anniversary of the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act — generated much news coverage, much of it quite good and deeper than the typical superficial treatment of disability rights issues. The San Francisco Chronicle’s July 26 story, “Collecting on a Promise: Disabled say they are still in fight for rights 10 years after disabilities act,” by Carolyn Lochhead of the Chronicle’s Washington Bureau, offered a fair and balanced assessment of both the changes in the environment brought about by the law’s access mandates, and interviewed disability leaders on the problems stemming from continued lax enforcement of the act. To read the story, which is still online, go tohttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/07/26/MN26987.DTL

Lochhead’s story, like many during July on the Act’s progress, did seem to give disability rights leaders equal voice, although for “balance” many reporters or their editors felt obliged to quote the Act’s many vociferous critics.

Many of the major news outlets have kept their ADA anniversary stories online (for a list of many of the stories from major news outlets that ran last July around ADA Anniversary time, visit Ragged Edge magazine’s mediacircus.com website athttp://www.raggededgemagazine.com/mediacircus/annivnews.htm )

The Washington Post’s coverage during ADA anniversary time was also noteworthy; and its website continues to use the URL to feature coverage of ongoing disability rights issues, such as this past fall’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the Garrett case. See the site athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/socialpolicy/ada/

The site provides links as well; of particular interest is the beautifully designed photo-essay on the disability activist group ADAPT by Washington Post photographer Lynn Johnson at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/onassignment/adapt/

Unfortunately, despite this good news, much media coverage on the ADA continued to portray the Act “as mainly a regulatory issue affecting private businesses, rather than a human rights issue facing society as a whole,” writes Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Jackson’s excellent overview, in the Nov./Dec. issue of F.A.I.R. EXTRA!, outlines the ADA-is-bad coverage. Read her story, “A Right, Not a Favor: Coverage of Disability Act misses historical shift” online athttp://www.fair.org/extra/0011/ada.html

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Casey Martin victory coverage is mixed

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

June 5, 2001 — While the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 29 ruling in PGA Tour v. Martin was a victory for the Americans with Disabilities Act’s Title III, it does not seem to be changing the media’s understanding of the law.

Casey Martin’s story was “one about inspiration, not litigation,” about a “courageous young man, … a gleaming example of how a handicap can be overcome,” wrote Orlando Sentinel Sports Columnist Mike Bianchi (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=orl%2Dspt%2Dcaseypro30053001). Bianchi’s is just one of many columns that took this angle.

A good overview of national opinion can be found in columns in Sunday’s Washington Post. In “Compassionate’ Courts,” Columnist George F. Will says he does not like them (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10840-2001Jun2?language=printer); in “Golf, Baseball and . . .,” David S. Broder says he’s “scared of the precedent” he thinks the case will set (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10847-2001Jun2?language=printer).

Among the better editorials was St. Louis Post’s on May 30 (<>http://home.post-dispatch.com/channel\pdweb.nsf/text/86256A0E0068FE5086256A5C002524F5), which noted that the “essence of the ADA” is about “making reasonable modifications that do not fundamentally alter the undertaking — in this case, making golf shots.” **NOTE: THIS WILL DISAPPEAR TOMORROW INTO THE POST’S FEE-BASED ARCHIVES — SO IF YOU WANT TO READ IT, DO IT NOW! **

Ragged Edge Online’s “EXTRA!” feature has a discussing the coverage in more detail; to read it, go tohttp://www.raggededgemagazine.com/extra/caseyscart.htm

E-Letter readers should watch the Baltimore Sun’s Perspective section (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/perspective/) this coming Sunday for an expected analysis of news coverage of the Martin decision from Center for An Accessible Society associate and Towson University journalism professor Beth Haller.

The Center’s overview is online athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/ada/pgavmartin.htm To read the Supreme Court opinion, go tohttp://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-24#section1)

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Inspiring ‘overcomer’ stories are newsroom cliches

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

July 10, 2001 — “Erik Weihenmayer had just become the first blind man to climb Mount Everest, putting him on the ‘Today’ show and the cover of Time magazine. The sighted folks were inspired again, and I knew what was coming,” wrote Kathi Wolfe in the July 1 Washington Post Outlook section. Wolfe, who’s blind, has written about disability issues for both Mainstream Magazine and Ragged Edge magazine, as well as national mass media. Her “He’s Your Inspiration, Not Mine” piece in The Post (online athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2072-2001Jun29.html),which was picked up last Sunday by both the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Louisville Courier-Journal, seems to have struck a chord.

“Supercrips are everywhere in the media,” Wolfe went on. “The person with no use of her arms who paints masterpieces with her feet, the guy with Tourette’s syndrome who becomes a radio announcer, Stephen Hawking explaining the universe from his wheelchair. And, of course, that blind mountain climber.

“But realistic stories about people like me don’t often make it into print or onto TV. As Joseph P. Shapiro wrote in ‘No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement”‘: ‘While prodigious achievement is praiseworthy. . . it does not reflect the . . . reality of most disabled people, who struggle constantly with smaller challenges, such as finding a bus with a wheelchair lift to go downtown, or fighting beliefs that people with disabilities cannot work, be educated or enjoy life as well as anyone else.'”

A scan of major newspapers in recent weeks says Wolfe — and Shapiro –have it right. While there do seem to be more stories discussing disability issues than in the past, there are also these: “Renata di Pietro is almost blind. She recognizes things — when she can — by shapes, movement and colors. Born prematurely, she developed severe myopia and damage to her retinas when she was given too much oxygen at birth. But her disability did not stop di Pietro, 49, from pursuing a career as an opera singer.” Hartford Courant staff writer Constance Neyer’s July 5 story, “Singing From the Heart: Soprano Overcomes Disability, Uses Voice to Connect with Audiences” (online at http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editorial.dll?render=y&eetype=Article&eeid=4853963&ck=&ver=3.0 ) is typical of the “overcomer” genre. Such cliches seem to be a formula accepted, and often encouraged, by editors. Sometimes a story is done for no other reason than the fact that the person has a disability; but a person profiled for legitimate accomplishments or skills will also get the cliched treatment if it’s learned she has a disability. It’s such a routine approach that it seems most reporters and editors don’t realize they’re being formulaic.

Detroit News reporter Joe Lawlor’s June 3 piece on McKayla Hanson is headlined “Cancer left no obstacle for girl, 13: Flushing teen excels after chemo, amputation” (online at http://detnews.com/2001/metro/0106/03/c06-231463.htm). In the same paper, a news brief three days later, headlined “Disabled woman aims to win Miss Michigan,” reports that Madonna Emond, 20, “aims to become the first Miss Michigan with a disability.” One of Emonds’ legs is inches shorter than the other, the result of a sports accident. “Nevertheless, she doesn’t let the disability stop her. Emond is a volunteer in the Special Olympics Program as well as the Association for Retarded Children, Safe Rides, and SADD.” Omaha World-Herald reporter Cliff Brunt wrote on May 20 that “Anselmo-Merna long jumper Marty Myers uses his disabled right arm as motivation, not as an excuse. … He has not let it stop him. The freshman not only qualified for state in the long jump, he plays football and basketball.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Wolfe writes. “I like to read news reports on disabled people, at least when they’re about issues — health insurance, discrimination, education — that concern me and my peers.

“Just keep us in some kind of real context.”

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‘Homebound rule’ coverage the work of disability columnists in nation’s newspapers

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

July 17, 2001 — Sunday’s Denver Post carried a story about the Medicare “homebound rule.” That’s the rule that says says that recipients of Medicare-paid home care must be “confined to the home.” The story, by former New Mobility editor Barry Corbet, is one of only a few articles to appear in the media about the rule and about the continuing effort to change it. Read Corbet’s story in the Denver Post athttp://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,75%257E67950,00.html

We wrote about problem with the “homebound rule” in our Feb. 20 E-letter (“NEW EFFORT GROWS TO ABOLISH ‘HOMEBOUND’ RULE”) when we reported on efforts of Atlanta David Jayne to fight the rule and to begin a campaign to change it (see http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/programs-policy/homeboundrule.htm)

Since then a number of disability issues columnists have taken up the issue in the nation’s newspapers. Last Thursday, Orlando Sentinel disability columnist Mona Hughes wrote “Time To Change Medicare Home-Bound Rule” (available online at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-vlmona-07132001.story). In April, “Imperfect Navigator” columnist Alexandria Berger of the Norfolk (Va.) The Virginian-Pilot wrote on April 23 (“Homebound rule holds some disabled folks prisoner,” available for a fee athttp://www.pilotonline.com/archives/). The first column to appear on the issue was Michael Volkman’s in the Albany (NY) Time Union Dec. 24, 2000 (“‘Homebound rule’ must be abolished” available for a fee in the archives athttp://www.timesunion.com/library/).

If it weren’t for disability columnists, though, the issue would get practically no coverage. Although Jayne was profiled in People magazine’s April 16 issue, Nick Charles’ piece focused mostly on the gee-whiz aspects and dealt little with the larger issue of the ‘homebound rule’ ( “Brave Heart: Penalized by Medicare for refusing to be a prisoner of his fatal disease, David Jayne teaches others life’s lessons: Love deeply and never give up”).

The bill to amend the rule, HR 1490, was introduced in April by Rep.ÊEdward J. Markey, ( D – MA)Ê and referred to House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Health; there’s been no action since. You can follow the action of bill in the House at the Library of Congress’ U.S. Congress website at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d107:6:./temp/~bdbnls::

Other links, including one to the original story about Jayne that ran in last November’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are available from our website athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/programs-policy/homeboundrule.htm

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Homebound rule’ coverage the work of disability columnists in nation’s newspapers

‘

Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.

July 17, 2001 — Sunday’s Denver Post carried a story about the Medicare “homebound rule.” That’s the rule that says says that recipients of Medicare-paid home care must be “confined to the home.” The story, by former New Mobility editor Barry Corbet, is one of only a few articles to appear in the media about the rule and about the continuing effort to change it. Read Corbet’s story in the Denver Post athttp://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,75%257E67950,00.html

We wrote about problem with the “homebound rule” in our Feb. 20 E-letter (“NEW EFFORT GROWS TO ABOLISH ‘HOMEBOUND’ RULE”) when we reported on efforts of Atlanta David Jayne to fight the rule and to begin a campaign to change it (see http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/programs-policy/homeboundrule.htm)

Since then a number of disability issues columnists have taken up the issue in the nation’s newspapers. Last Thursday, Orlando Sentinel disability columnist Mona Hughes wrote “Time To Change Medicare Home-Bound Rule” (available online at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-vlmona-07132001.story). In April, “Imperfect Navigator” columnist Alexandria Berger of the Norfolk (Va.) The Virginian-Pilot wrote on April 23 (“Homebound rule holds some disabled folks prisoner,” available for a fee athttp://www.pilotonline.com/archives/). The first column to appear on the issue was Michael Volkman’s in the Albany (NY) Time Union Dec. 24, 2000 (“‘Homebound rule’ must be abolished” available for a fee in the archives athttp://www.timesunion.com/library/).

If it weren’t for disability columnists, though, the issue would get practically no coverage. Although Jayne was profiled in People magazine’s April 16 issue, Nick Charles’ piece focused mostly on the gee-whiz aspects and dealt little with the larger issue of the ‘homebound rule’ ( “Brave Heart: Penalized by Medicare for refusing to be a prisoner of his fatal disease, David Jayne teaches others life’s lessons: Love deeply and never give up”).

The bill to amend the rule, HR 1490, was introduced in April by Rep.ÊEdward J. Markey, ( D – MA)Ê and referred to House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Health; there’s been no action since. You can follow the action of bill in the House at the Library of Congress’ U.S. Congress website at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d107:6:./temp/~bdbnls::

Other links, including one to the original story about Jayne that ran in last November’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are available from our website athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/programs-policy/homeboundrule.htm

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Center Study Looks At Coverage

“Print journalists are much more likely to use people with disabilities as examples in their news stories than assources.”

This is one of the major findings in the study “News Coverage of Disability Issues,” a study done to determine how agenda-setting U.S. news media cover disability issues. As part of the NIDRR funded project to get mass media coverage of disability research, the Center examined news coverage of disability issues in major news outlets during a two-month period in the fall of 1998.

“Almost 70 percent of the stories concerning disability “had no identifiable source with a disability in it,” reports study author Beth Haller. While this could simply mean that journalists are “not identifying the disability status of sources,” said the report, this is unlikely since reporters tend to identify the “status” of sources. What’s more likely, writes Haller, is that journalists are not using people with disabilities as sources; in any case, the sources are not identified as being with any disability organization.

The finding suggests that people with disabilities, “while not ignored, are not in control of disability-related coverage,” said the report. In the list of sources used in stories in agenda-setting media, “national disability organizations were largely missing.” “The message that may be getting to the public” is that “people with disabilities can’t speak for themselves.”

People with disabilities were more likely to be used as news sources on local stories than national stories.

Haller is Associate Professor of Journalism at Towson University.

FROM THE REPORT’S Discussion:

The most surprising finding from the quantitative part of the study is the conspicuous link between disability issues and education and children in the print stories. Several common sense reasons contribute to this. First, the study collected stories from October and November, when all U.S. schools are in session. Secondly, mandatory public education is a prominent feature of American society and has been for decades, and each U.S. newspaper, no matter how large or small, traditionally covers education and schools as part of their geographic community. Thirdly, inclusive education for children with disabilities has been a major focus for local disability activists and parents of children with disabilities since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) became law.

The fact that the print media are finally covering education issues related to disability is of major importance. One question answered by this study is how they are covering it. And many times they are writing stories that have no person with a disability as a source.

Print journalists are much more likely to use people with disabilities as examples in their news stories rather than as sources. In addition, people with disabilities were much more likely to be sources in feature stories, rather than news stories, which means they may not have been used as sources on more hard-hitting issues. This has implications for the message that may be getting across to the general public: That people with disabilities can’t speak for themselves. This is obviously untrue, but that is the impression that might be left in the minds of readers.

Also of concern is the finding that so few women with disabilities are involved in news stories about disability issues. This is especially problematic given the fact that there are slightly more females than males in the United States in general, and that women continue to be prominent in education-related jobs. Yet, women and girls with disabilities are largely ignored.

However, people with disabilities and local disability organizations did have a “voice” in disability-related stories. People with disabilities or their families were most often sources in the stories, which is a very good sign. Local disability organizations were also often sources in 10% the stories. The disability groups that were largely missing from the coverage were national disability organizations, which is a somewhat unexpected finding because the newspapers and news magazines used in the print study are the largest in the United States and many consider themselves to be “national” newspapers. The journalistic practice of localizing stories may have accounted for this lack of national disability sources.

But because numerous studies have shown that the news media heavily relies on government sources and “expert” sources, their lack of contact with the major disability experts in America is cause for concern. Experts affiliated with NIDRR, the Society for Disability Studies, or the World Institute on Disability could have commented on many of the topics covered by the news stories, but journalists don’t seem to know they exist.

From the Recommendations:

— In terms of news stories, disability-related organizations need to stick to the slogan on the disability rights poster: “Nothing about us, without us.” This study shows that journalists do know to use people with disabilities in stories about disability issues because they are used as sources in about 30% of the articles. But the disability “side” of the story should be in every story that includes those issues.

–. With the obvious media and public interest in education issues, disability and education spokespeople need to actively work together to get correct information about these issues into the news. As found previously in the study of ADA coverage, other groups can work against laws preventing discrimination against people with disabilities and their side of the story may be given equal credence. For example, people who are against inclusive education — even schools and parents — may actively seek to turn the news discourse into one about inclusive education being “bad.” Disability organizations must be pro-active in controlling the news agenda on this and other topics about disability issues.

— Disability topics are part of the multicultural discourse that needs to be entering the journalistic marketplace of ideas. Disability organizations should be aggressive and not wait for journalists to decide it’s time to do a story. They should actively pitch serious story ideas.

For example, before a major Supreme Court decision is even handed down, disability organizations should show journalists the implications of the case in their local community. Normally, journalists will do this story anyway, but the disability focus will be stronger if disability sources intervene as early as possible.

— In suggesting print stories, disability organizations need to plug into current print media norms of featurizing stories and localizing stories. Because of today’s information overload among news audiences, the public’s relationship to different media has been changing. People tend to watch TV for spot news, and those who want to know more about the issues in-depth read newspapers and news magazines. People who make an effort to keep up with the news are the opinion leaders, so disability organizations need to get correct information about the issues before them by getting into the major print news media.

— In terms of television, disability organizations should focus on getting more stories onto the evening newsbecause it is the number one news source in the United States. They should also work on creating non-stigmatizing sound bites that can get into disability-related stories because there is not the opportunity to go into the issue in-depth.

The longer the TV story, the more need for the program to be entertaining and provocative to hold viewers’ attention. Therefore, the longer format has more potential to perpetuate stigma. TV news magazines, which are a more recent media phenomenon that fit somewhere between TV spot news and print news magazines, have an “infotainment” focus that has the potential to do double damage if not managed properly. They look to Supercrips as sources and as subjects of stories because they fit with the “infotainment” format. These news magazine segments can give lengthy, in-depth, possibly incorrect, disability information in a visually compelling and potentially stigmatizing format. In contrast, a TV news story has less chance to stigmatize or give incorrect information because it usually lasts only 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

— Disability organizations need to get the names of theirexpert sources into the hands of TV news producers and prominent print journalists. Most journalists and producers don’t even know the names of national disability groups or national disability experts. In contrast, they do know national business experts or national education experts. Disability experts must be equally as prominent. However, disability expert sources should be trained so as to avoid being turned into a Supercrip on camera. It is crucial that the issues, not a person, be the subject of the stories.

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