News & Advocacy in Disability Rights

The Media Is The Message

By Cyndi Jones, Publisher

This time last year, Bill Stothers and I were part of an on-line discussion about media and disability.

We have always been concerned about how the media perceives disability issues. It is very frustrating for us to watch as our issues are ignored by the mass media or reported incorrectly and contrary to disability rights perspective.

It is time to change the way the media thinks about and reports on disability, and who they quote on our issues. Only by doing this do we have any hope of affecting public opinion on the issues that matter to us: physician induced death, ADA, IDEA, employment, fair housing, transportation, managed cost health care. We all know the list.

As we see the medical costs dictating care, and the public making a negative connection between scarce resources and people with disabilities, is it any wonder that the Right to Die movement is picking up speed? Where is the public outrage at Jack Kevorkian?

What is the story behind all his "assisted" deaths, and why isn't the public getting the whole story from the media? Where's our side?

Until the media understands the disability perspective, our lives will never get easier. In fact, our lives will be in jeopardy.

In January of last year, Mary Johnson, editor of Ragged Edge, Bill and myself started thinking about what we could do to change this. Many groups -- the NAACP, ACT-UP, NOW, Christian Coalition -- have changed the way the media responds to their issues, but disability rights groups have not yet achieved that goal.

In preparation for the next millennium and in response to that on-line discussion, MAINSTREAM and Ragged Edge are hosting a May meeting called "What we say... What they hear", May 21-23, 1999, in Louisville.

There are no speakers -- except, of course, every attendee. There are no panel discussions or "how-to" workshops. The agenda is simply to come together to discuss where we are with the current state of media affairs and find areas where we can effect change.

We have no "outcome" in mind. When the best thinkers in the movement set aside a day or two to focus on a single -- though large -- issue, ideas will surface that will change the way we think about the problem and the way we respond to the issues. By coming together we hope to create a focus in the disability community around media concerns.

I know there will be more action items generated than any of us alone could come up with -- but even if only one great idea surfaces, we will be miles ahead.

So, MAINSTREAM reader, if you read your local paper and wonder why "our stuff" is seldom covered, and no one connected with the disability rights movement is ever quoted; if you would like to change this, and thereby change the way millions of people think about disability -- then come to the May Media meeting. Bring your frustration, your imagination, your hope for the future and your vision of what disability coverage will look like in the next millennium.

Here's to a great year and a great new millennium.

Cyndi Jones is Publisher of MAINSTREAM.

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