For coverage of disability issues:
http://www.spj.org/dtb5.asp
National Center on Disability Journalism
http://ncdj.org/links.html
Resources:
http://pages.towson.edu/bhalle/disable.html
Visit one of these sites and consider the stereotypes of disabilities that you are familiar with. Where did you get these stereotypes, from news coverage or mass media? Write about your perceptions on your blog.
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2 comments:
The Guidelines for news reporting and disabilities I think aren't as big of a deal now becasue I hardly ever see or read a reportes story and use terms such as mentally ill or disable in their stories unless it relavent to the story. Honestly I really haven't been paying that much attention with the disability and news reporting. But like I said unless that's what the story is about and it seems relavent to the story then I really don't see reporters using the actual terms.
It makes me sad to realize that although the Disability Act has been executed by the US Congress, many public business houses such as schools, colleges, universities do not have enough or none of required standards to accommodate disabled people. My concern is, does any one really conduct investigations on whether the requirements for any public building or facility has accessible and has enough accommodation to cater for the disabled people? If the answer is, “Yes.” Then why do we see many disabled people still having problems in accessing into some business houses, getting a top managerial position, living a comfortable life, owning a successful business company like Bill Gates?
For example, according to the Society of Professional Journalists: “When the school district builds a new elementary school or when the downtown hotel renovates, ask, if the buildings comply with the federal law. Are they accessible to people with disabilities? In the after math of the September 11, 2001, tragedy, most reporters missed stories about the failure of buildings evacuation plans to include wheel chair users. In the 1994 California earthquakes, journalists didn’t report that disaster relief centers used inaccessible shelters and turned away deaf people due to lack of interpreters.” www.spj.org/dtb5.asp
There are some organizations in the United States such as: The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, The American Association of People with Disabilities, United Cerebral Palsy Association and the National Association of the Deaf, to mention only a few. These organizations are supposed to speak out and act on behalf of the people with disabilities. My question is, “Do they do their jobs effectively? Or they just leave the problems to the society to fix them?”
Unfortunately, the society does not fix these problems, instead, the society only stereotypes many people with disabilities despite the fact that disability is inherent. You cannot run away from it, nor can you prevent it. There is no prevention for any inherent problem. The society and the government should do better to help the disabled people to succeed in life, education, commercial business ventures and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the society seem not to pity disabled people, instead ,they stereotype people with disabilities, apparently, we are in the contemporary world which believes in the myth “Each one for himself but God for us all.”
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