Reporting on Disability: Tips from Our Newsletter

October 28, 2021

When reporting on disability, is it best to use person-first language (i.e. “person with a disability”) or identity-first language (i.e. “disabled person”)?

In a new interview with Poynter, Amy Sullivan, the lead author of the National Center on Disability and Journalism’s disability language style guide, gives the best answer to this question: “We should be continuing again and again, wherever we can, to emphasize that the most important thing is for the journalists to ask the person with a disability how they’d like to be referred to.”

I wanted to highlight this interview in this section because a) it’s the right answer to a common inclusive language question and b) it’s the general style guide philosophy we subscribe to at Reframe: describing a source’s identity should always start with asking that source to describe it themselves.

April 7, 2022

Where can journalists look for resources on reporting on disability?

Some excellent news inspired this question: the release of Hannah Wise’s toolkit for newsrooms to better serve the disability community, via the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

In addition to this comprehensive resource, journalists may also find the following educational:

• National Center on Disability and Journalism’s Style Guide
• Conscious Style Guide’s section on Ability + Disability
• Accessible Social’s guide to accessibility and social media
• The Center for Disability Rights’ Writing & Journalism Guides
• The Disability Visibility Project
• “What journalists can do better to cover the disability beat” by Wendy Lu
• “The Way We Talk About Disabilities Is Evolving. Is It Evolving Fast Enough?” by Daniel King

July 28, 2022

In July, a video circulated of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris describing her appearance during a roundtable with disability advocates to mark the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was sadly lampooned by Twitter users unfamiliar with the etiquette for introducing oneself in a way that’s inclusive of blind and visually impaired people.

What is that etiquette? VocalEyes has a thorough guide to inclusive self-description. Here are a few important pointers:

• “Self-description provides information about the individual that non-blind people take in visually, and when done by everyone at a meeting or conference, gives the blind or visually impaired people present a sense of the diversity or lack of diversity of those speaking, on a panel or in the room generally.
• Always start with your name, and organization if relevant.
• Keep it to one or two sentences at most, and to important information. It’s a thumbnail sketch, not an oil portrait.
• If you were arranging to meet a non-blind person in a public place who you have not met before, how would you describe yourself so that they could pick you out from the crowd?”

July 6, 2023

In The Open Notebook’s reported piece, “Eradicating Ableist Language Yields More-Accurate and More-Humane Journalism” reporter Marion Renault explores resources available to avoid ableist language and explains how the core principles of anti-ableism apply to journalism. It’s a feature-length read, but it’s a great start for anyone just learning about reporting on disability communities.

October 5, 2023

In case you missed it, Nieman Lab summed up a recent panel at the IMEDD International Journalism Forum on making newsrooms more welcoming for disabled journalists. Send this one to your team Slack channel.

February 8, 2024

National disability rights advocacy organization The Arc has published a journalist’s guide to reporting on disability in the context of the 2024 election. It makes a perfect companion to The Journalist’s Resource’s new explainer on the barriers faced by people with disabilities when voting. Send these around your newsroom as the U.S. primaries and caucuses continue.