My five tips for journalists and editors writing and talking about disability

A few months back I was asked to do a short piece to camera for ABC RN. It’s my five tips for journalists and editors writing and talking about disability. We want to see more disabled people in the media, and this can start with editors commissioning our work.

I hope these tips we useful.  Thanks for having me, ABC RN!

Here are my notes from the day:

– Invite people with disability to tell their stories – centre the story.
– Editors – invite people with disability to write.
– It doesn’t matter how we got like this – sometimes we don’t need to tell our disability back story for our current story to be powerful.
– Disability/disabled is not a bad word. Stigma is created when euphemisms like special needs are used.
– Use empowering language – not wheelchair bound, not suffers from, not normal. This is othering. Terms like wheelchair user, lives with, people without disability are preferred.
– Avoid inspiration porn. Don’t congratulate a disabled person for just getting out of bed and going to work. Would it be a story if the subject wasn’t disabled? Probably not.
– Pay people to write.

Follow me on Facebook. Instagram, and Twitter.

Buy me a drink if this has helped you!