Chapter one: Analysis of Print, Radio and Television Media

Introduction and Methodology

This Media Analysis Content chapter outlines the main findings of an analysis of disability-related media content published in New Zealand during 2012.

The analysis statistically measured how the media treated disability in that period through a search of 518 stories from print, television and radio. Two Media Coding Analysts were employed by the New Zealand Convention Coalition Monitoring Group to undertake this task over a one-month period in March/April 2013.

The analysis was conducted using the Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI) Media Coding Spreadsheet. All three media platforms were analysed using this tool. The main print media outlets analysed were the four major metropolitan daily newspapers: The New Zealand Herald (Auckland), Dominion Post (Wellington), The Press (Christchurch) and Otago Daily Times (Dunedin). Three items from the Stuff.co.nz website were also included in this analysis.

The print content analysis was undertaken via web-based searches. Originally, the media Project Team had considered utilising a press clippings service to analyse print and other media content. However, after investigation, it was agreed that such services were unaffordable. The Ombudsman’s Office did supply the analysts with a set of media monitored articles as well but these were found to yield no more information from the four newspapers analysed when a search of these was undertaken. Therefore, the Project Team decided to employ web-based media searches to both contain costs and speed up the process.

For this reason, it is imperative to note that there were slight variations in the types of websites searched. One analyst was able to obtain access to an academic research engine for searches of the Dominion Post/Stuff, and The Press. The second analyst who could not access any academic-based search engines for searches of the New Zealand Herald and Otago Daily Times searched the ordinary websites of these publications.

This affected the quantitative analysis in one small but not insignificant way. This came about due to the fact that the analyst using the academic search engine could ascertain the exact place that stories appeared in the sections they appeared in (for example, if they appeared at the beginning or the end of the sports section?), whereas, the media coding analyst searching ordinary newspaper websites could not. Therefore, the Dominion Post/Stuff and The Press searches were able to yield the information required for where stories were placed within these publications whereas the searches of the New Zealand Herald and ODT could not.

Another outcome of needing to search online is that the search categories for section placement were altered slightly, at least in respect to the New Zealand Herald. Stories that would have appeared under the heading ‘local’ in all other publications were listed as ‘national’ on their website. Therefore, for this reason, the heading ‘National/Front’ is used when referring to stories that either appear in the front section of the metropolitan dailies and specifically to news from the New Zealand Herald.

Using the key search terms ‘disability’, ‘disabled’, ‘disabilities’, and ‘handicapped’, 433 print items were analysed with each print media outlet broken down as: New Zealand Herald (n=190) Otago Daily Times (n=95) Dominion Post and Stuff (n=99), and Christchurch Press (n=49). For this reason, print media represents the vast majority of media content analysed across all platforms.

The variations in the number of articles analysed for each print publication also came about due to a decision by the analysts to weight them on the following basis. The highest number of articles came from the New Zealand Herald, given that the newspaper serves the country’s largest metropolitan population centre (Auckland). It has also long been regarded as New Zealand’s most significant daily newspaper given its circulation, influence and wide audience. Therefore, the New Zealand Herald can almost be considered as New Zealand’s default national daily newspaper. The Dominion Post provided the next largest sample given that it is the newspaper serving the nation’s capital (Wellington.) Hence, the Dominion Post is read by the nation’s political, bureaucratic and business elites, thus its importance in the daily newspaper hierarchy. Next is the Otago Daily Times (ODT). This newspaper was given a significant weighting as it is one of the few metropolitan dailies that has a strongly regional/local focus to its coverage. The ODT has one of the smallest circulations of any of the ‘big four’ dailies surveyed. A considerable argument can be made that The Press should have been granted greater, if not equal weight, alongside the other three as most of its readership live in New Zealand’s second largest city. Besides, Christchurch suffered two major earthquakes during 2010 and 2011 and these twin disasters severely impacted the lives of all Christchurch disabled people and their families/whanau. Irrespective of this, the small but not insignificant sample of The Press we analysed does inform as to how a major media organisation is looking at earthquake recovery issues and, in particular, their impact on disabled people. Another aspect to note is that Stuff.co.nz has been grouped alongside The Dominion Post for the purposes of this study as it was difficult to separate them due to the way that the articles were grouped on the DRPI spreadsheet. In terms of Maori print media, an analyst consulted 12 issues of Mana magazine but no content was found pertaining to disabled Maori and related issues at all in 2012.

Obviously, though, there are many more media articles that appear under any of the above-mentioned disability-related search terms in any given year, as, for example, a search using the term ‘disability 2012’ on the New Zealand Herald website generated 323 matches. Furthermore, some of these matches were repeats of the same item. Therefore, given time and resource constraints on this project, the analysts decided to limit their print media search, across all outlets, to approximately 500 articles.

Television and radio news and current affairs programmes also had their content analysed. The main media outlets surveyed for this purpose were TVNZ, TV3, Radio New Zealand National, Newstalk ZB, and Radio Live. Again, due to resourcing and time pressures, the analysis of TV and radio content is restricted to coverage of two major disability-related stories from 2012 - the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue and the 2012 London Paralympics. For these case studies, a total of 85 items were analysed. Again, the analysts encountered issues with finding sufficient audio and audiovisual material from, two outlets, namely Radio Live and Prime Television (which broadcasts a small half hour nightly news bulletin.) Therefore, we have likely undercounted the amount of coverage afforded to both the Mojo Mathers funding issue and the Paralympics from these broadcasters.

We also analysed each media platform separately. Accordingly, this report is divided into two sections.

The first section analyses the print media’s treatment of disabled people. The second traverses the TV and radio treatment of the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue and the 2012 Paralympics.

These sections are further sub-divided and analysed according to the main category headings of the DRPI spreadsheet database. These are section placement; type of story; photo illustration; story prominence; word count; types of impairment covered; UNCRPD topics; cross-cutting topic; voice; framing perspectives; and language used. An important aspect to note is that the print media section will contain an analysis of all these categories whereas, in the second section, only some of these frameworks were found to be applicable.

This chapter concludes with a summary of how different media platforms covered disabled people and the attitudes they displayed towards them in 2012.

All figures are expressed as approximate percentages of 433 and 20 and 65 (n=518), respectively for television and radio or another identified number, rounded up or down to the nearest whole number to calculate 100.00%. Also the numbers will vary slightly from DRPI measure to DRPI measure due to the minor variation presented by the small Stuff.co.nz sample which is measured in some sub-categories but not in others.

Part A: Print Media

Section placement

Section placement refers to where a disability-related story is placed within a specific section of a publication. This is measured by the DRPI tool in two ways. Firstly, it is expressed in terms of where do disability stories appear within their publications? Are they placed in the front/national, local, sports, business, arts, opinion-editorial, regular column, lifestyle/health food or other sections? Secondly, where do publications place disability stories within these sections? Are they placed at the beginning, middle or end of the relevant section where they appear?

Where publications place disability-related stories may reflect how prominently (or not) disabled people and their issues are treated by the publication concerned. If a story about a disabled sports event appears in the local news section rather than the sports section, for example, this may indicate that the publication may consider disability sport as not being ‘sport’ at all. Also, if a story about the Paralympics appears in the middle of the sports section and not at the beginning, then this also indicates that the publication concerned may view other disabled sporting events in the same vein.

In 2012, all of the metropolitan daily newspapers surveyed (including the Stuff.co.nz website) displayed similar trends.

The table below shows the sectional placement of disability stories in 2012.

Table 1: Sections where disability stories appeared in 2012 ¹

Section	National	Business	Sports	Arts	Op-Ed	Health etc	Local	Other
Totals	192	17	33	7	38	13	47	83
NZ Herald	116	14	14	2	13	6	0	25
Dominion Post/ Stuff	27	2	10	1	15	4	12	27
The Press	29	0	3	2	7	1	0	7
ODT	20	1	6	2	3	2	35	24

Note #1

Please note that due to spacing considerations in this chart, Front/National appears as ‘National’ and Lifestyle/Health/Food appears as ‘Health etc.’

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The highest number of disability stories appeared in the national sections with approximately 44% of all stories analysed appearing there. The second highest category was ‘other’ defined as articles which appeared, for example, in the special feature ‘Christchurch Rebuild’ section of The Press newspaper with 19%. The third highest category was ‘local’ with 10%, fourth ‘op-ed’ at 9%, fifth ‘sports’ at 8%, followed by business with 5%, lifestyle/health/food with 3%, and the arts at 2%.

From the analysis, it can be deduced that the vast majority of disability-related content (53%) was published in the main national or local news sections of our daily press. Disability issues cross a wide range of everyday topics (politics, housing, health care, education, transport), generally covered in the national and local news sections of the media.

However, there appears to be a lack of coverage, for example, regarding disabled artistic and cultural ventures within our print media. What few stories there were on disabled people’s artistic and cultural ventures appeared in the ODT (x2 reports) and the Dominion Post (x3 reports/reviews on a disabled people’s dance performance, and a performance by a Deaf people’s theatre troupe). Also, reviews of the 2012 film The Sessions, produced by a disabled person and whose storyline was based on the diary of a real life person with polio, appeared, for example, in the ODT and NZ Herald.

The two metropolitan dailies for whom beginning, middle and end sectional story figures could be obtained (The Press and Dominion Post/Stuff) mainly placed stories on disability at the beginning or end of the relevant sections surveyed. Very few stories appeared in the middle parts of sections.

The table below illustrates the distribution of disability stories in these publications.

Table 1.1: Placement of disability stories in publication sections by newspaper

Publication	Beginning	Middle	End
Totals	86	15	46
Dominion Post/Stuff	51	14	33
The Press	35	1	14

In percentage terms, the Dominion Post/Stuff, and The Press (n=149) chose to place the majority of their disability-related content (58%) at the beginning of the relevant section. By contrast, just 11% of disability-related material ended up in the middle of the relevant newspaper section concerned while 31% of disability content was placed at the end of a section.

These figures suggest that, for these publications at least, disability stories were considered important enough to be featured at the beginning rather than in the middle or end of the sections where they were placed (news, sport, business, etc). There is no doubt that these editorial decisions would have assisted readers in being able to observe that disability issues were important, not only for disabled people, but for society as a whole.

Type of story – print

Type of story refers to the type of newspaper item that disability stories appeared as in the four main metropolitan dailies in 2012. The DRPI spreadsheet notes nine distinct story types: cartoon/picture only; staff-written news report; op-ed submission; column; editorial; letter to the editor; domestic wire (news item produced by a news wire service within New Zealand, e.g. APNZ); international wire (news item produced by an overseas news wire service, e.g. Reuters); and other (freelance written copy or a special section).

The table below outlines the story types that disability-related articles appeared as.

Table 1.2: Type of story – print

Category	NZ Herald	Dominion Post/Stuff	ODT	The Press	Totals
Cartoon/Picture	1	0	2	0	3
Staff-written news report	121	39	50	17	227
Op-Ed Submission	8	9	3	6	26
Column	39	39	7	26	111
Editorial	3	3	0	0	6
Letter to the Editor	0	9	0	0	9
Domestic Wire	1	0	17	0	18
International Wire	12	0	12	0	24
Other	4	0	3	0	7

As the table shows, the highest number of disability stories generated appeared as a staff-written news report constituting 53% of the total. The second highest number came in the form of columns (for example, regular feature columns written by staff and outside columnists) with 26%. Third equal were international wire and opinion-editorial submissions with  6% each, fourth, domestic wire 4%, fifth, letter to the editor 2%, and sixth equal editorial, cartoon/picture, and other categories at 1% each.

If the staff-written as well international and domestic wire and other columns are tabulated together, this shows that 63% of disability-related stories came from journalist-generated copy in 2012. Similarly, if the column, editorial, cartoon/picture, opinion-editorial, and letter to the editor percentages are tabulated together the remaining 37% of disability-related content can be considered as having been generated by editorial staff or columnists.

Photo illustration and story prominence

Photos are used as a supportive, illustrative tool within print copy to provide visual support for stories. Of course, not all stories carry photographs. As identified earlier, one of the deficiencies of this survey was its web-based nature. This means that the total photo illustration figures for the New Zealand Herald whose content was solely analysed from the web is likely overstated given the 100% photographic placement rate for stories on its website. This is the case as the Herald seemed to publish all of their web based content with pictures whereas this may not have been actually the case within their print editions. Conversely, within the remaining publications, The Press, Dominion Post/Stuff and ODT, it is highly probable that they posted their content on the web or search engines in the same way that it appeared in their print editions. Hence, for these three newspapers, the number of photo illustrations placed alongside disability-related articles is probably representative of the actual number that appeared in their print editions.

The table below shows the number of disability stories that appeared with photo illustrations.

Table 1.3: Photo/illustration of story

Publication	Yes	No
Totals	338	95
NZ Herald	190	0
The Press	23	26
Dominion Post/Stuff	57	43
ODT	68	27

Once again, and bearing the New Zealand Herald caveat in mind, 78% of disability-related stories were accompanied by photos as against 32% without during 2012. Absent the New Zealand Herald, the raw national numbers change slightly to be 148 ‘yes’ while the total for ‘no’ remains constant. In terms of photographic illustrations, only The Press failed to illustrate a majority of their disability stories with photos (53% no to 47% yes).

Another DRPI measure of how disability is viewed by media outlets concerns how prominently or non-prominently they mention disabled people or disability issues in their stories. DRPI defines this by asking whether an item carries more than one mention of disability in the article analysed or not. If the article carries more than a singular mention of disability then it is deemed prominent and if it carries only a single mention and then no further coverage of disability, it is deemed non-prominent. From the analysis, it seems that three out of four of our major dailies were fairly consistent in making significant mentions of disabled people and their issues in disability-related stories during 2012.

The table below shows the prominence of disability mentions in newspaper stories during 2012.

Table 1.4: Prominence of disability mentions in newspaper stories

Publication	Prominent	Not Prominent
Totals	276	157
NZ Herald	117	73
The Press	40	9
Dominion Post/Stuff	75	24
ODT	44	51

Indeed, the majority of disability content in our main dailies mentioned disability issues and disabled people prominently by a margin of 63% to 37%. In terms of prominence, the figure runs as high as 81% prominent versus 19% non-prominent for The Press, followed closely by 75% prominent to 25% non-prominent for the Dominion Post/Stuff with the New Zealand Herald trailing with 61% prominent versus 39% non-prominent. Only the ODT counteracted this trend with a score of 53% non-prominent to 44% prominent.

Word Count

Word count measures the number of words in disability-related stories.

The table below illustrates the word count of disability-related stories by newspaper title in 2012.

Table 1.5: Word count of disability-related stories

Word Count	NZ Herald	The Press/Stuff	Dominion Post/Stuff	ODT	Word Count Category Totals
Totals by newspaper	190	49	99	95	433
Less than 150	2	0	6	3	11
151 to 500	15	26	29	24	94
501 to 1000	105	23	61	44	233
1001 to 1500	55	0	3	17	75
1501 words or more	13	0	0	7	20

The highest number of stories in our daily newspapers and on the Stuff website averaged 501 to 1000 words during 2012 representing 54% of all disability content published in these outlets. The second highest number of stories appeared in the shorter 151 to 500 word category at 22%. The third highest number appeared as 1001 to 1500 word stories at 17%, the fourth highest number appeared as stories of 1501 words or more at 5% and the fifth highest appeared as stories of less than 150 words with 2%.

Notably, the New Zealand Herald published more numerically longer disability-related stories than the other publications, largely due to its size and greater emphasis on features coverage when compared to other publications. For example, when stories of more than 501 words through to 1501 or more words are tabulated together, the New Zealand Herald published 91% of its stories in this range, whereas the ODT published 71%, the Dominion Post/Stuff 64%, while The Press was far behind at 46%. However, these figures maybe either overstated or understated for each publication due again to the varying sample sizes.

High profile topics

Before delving further into the analysis, it is important to elaborate on the high profile disability topics that the four major dailies covered during 2012. In fact, they strongly influenced the figures for each of the subsequent DRPI-determined categories. For the purposes of this survey, if a topic was mentioned in a significant and consistent way and had more than 10 mentions across all print publications, then it met the criterion for being considered high profile. This topic count covers all 433 print and Stuff stories analysed and allowed for the multiple cross-coding of categories.

Therefore, a total of 459 mentions of high profile topics were recorded in our print media sample during 2012. Due to the comparative differences in sample sizes, the figures for each high profile topic may be over-reported or under-reported. Notably, this is the case for the ACC, Mojo Mathers and Atkinson Case figures with regard to the ODT and The Press samples.

The table below outlines the highest profile disability topics in New Zealand newspapers during 2012.

Table 1.6: High-profile disability topics in New Zealand newspapers – 2012

News outlet	Mojo Mathers funding issue	Paralympic and Disabled Sport	No High Profile Topic	Abuse of disabled people	ACC issues	Atkinson Case	Totals by news outlet
Category totals	28	37	255	50	80	10	459
NZ Herald	9	11	66	23	78	3	190
The Press	1	4	44	8	0	0	57
ODT	0	11	83	11	0	0	105
Dominion Post/Stuff	17	11	62	8	2	7	107

As the table illustrates, the majority of disability stories are deemed to be non-high profile or, in percentage terms (n=459), 55% of the total high profile story sample.

The highest profile disability-related stories recorded were around issues pertaining to the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). The New Zealand Government-owned accident insurer received a high level of media coverage throughout the year, especially following the privacy breaches that came to light with the case of a prominent claimant with connections to the ruling National Party, Bronwyn Pullar, who had confidential corporation information incorrectly emailed to her. There followed a series of inquiries which concluded, among other things, that cultural change was necessary within the agency around how they dealt with their long-term clients. Consequently, the Pullar incident led to the appearance of more stories about how other clients had been allegedly mistreated by the corporation.

The second highest profile disability story was the 2012 London Paralympics and stories on disabled sport. Indeed, the fact of 2012 being a Paralympics year gave our print media greater scope and encouragement to cover not only the Games themselves but disabled sport both here and overseas. That is why stories referencing the Paralympics and disabled sport are grouped together. As one example, would a story about a brawl at a wheelchair basketball game in Turkey have received any mention in the New Zealand Herald had it not been Paralympics year?

The third highest profile disability story revolved around New Zealand’s first deaf and openly disabled Member of Parliament (MP) Mojo Mathers and her quest to secure funding from Parliamentary Services (the service that supports New Zealand’s legislators in their duties) for an electronic note taker.

As a deaf person, Mathers needed a note taker to enable her to participate in parliamentary debates and other parliamentary business. This story broke after then Speaker Lockwood Smith initially refused her request to fund any note takers from the main Parliamentary Services budget and instead recommended that any funding come from the Green Party’s own parliamentary budget. Mathers and her fellow Green Party MPs contested this decision on the basis that, if the funding came from their party budget, it would leave her unable to adequately fund her work with constituents and community groups outside Parliament. Speaker Smith eventually conceded the point and asked that Parliamentary Services fund the note takers but the resulting controversy was covered extensively by Parliament’s Press Gallery.

The fourth highest profile story relates to the systemic abuse and neglect of disabled people by mainly non-disabled people both here and overseas. Nearly all of the domestic-based sources for the abuse stories originated from Health and Disability Commissioner rulings made against residential service providers. Much of the overseas copy reported the abuse of disabled people in terms of their being the victims of torture, armed conflict, criminal fraud, neglect or abuse.

The fifth highest profile disability issue of the year in the New Zealand print media was the Atkinson family carer payments case. The Atkinson case began as a test case taken by a group of family caregivers/support people of high needs disabled people with the Human Rights Tribunal in 2008. This group, led by a Mrs Atkinson, asked that the Ministry of Health pay family caregivers supporting disabled people (whose disability support services were funded via the Ministry) on the same basis as family members employed to support injury disabled people by ACC. By 2012, the case had progressed to New Zealand’s Court of Appeal. In May 2012, the claimants won their case after the Court dismissed an appeal lodged by the Ministry.

Consequently, the Minister of Health announced that the Government would not appeal and agreed to pay, but only to the claimant family support workers. This case elicited a considerable amount of print media interest given the historic precedent it set.

These five stories will be referenced at appropriate intervals throughout the rest of this chapter. As noted earlier in the methodology, the Mojo Mathers and 2012 London Paralympic Games form the TV and radio case study elements of this media analysis.

Type of impairment

One of the primary measures that DRPI utilises with respect to disability media coverage is whether or not impairment is mentioned within a particular story. This indicates the level of coverage each major impairment grouping receives, on average, within media outlets. The DRPI measurement tool uses the following impairment categorisation system for determining this: mobility impairment (e.g. cerebral palsy, paraplegia); sensory impairment-blind; sensory impairment-low vision; sensory impairment-deaf; sensory impairment-hearing impaired²; intellectual impairment (e.g. learning disability); psycho-social impairment (e.g. people with psychiatric or psychological disabilities such as schizophrenia, depression, brain injury, dementia); and other (e.g. HIV/Aids, age-related).

The table below shows the level of coverage afforded major impairment groups in major daily newspaper disability-related stories during 2012.

Note #2

Sensory-hard of hearing will be referred to as hearing impaired throughout the rest of this report.

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Table 1.7: Type of impairment covered

Type of Impairment	New Zealand Herald	Dominion Post/Stuff	The Press	ODT	Totals
Total mentions by newspaper	228	120	69	115	532
Mobility	74	22	14	33	143
Sensory-blind	11	8	4	3	26
Sensory-low vision	14	0	0	0	14
Sensory deaf	4	20	1	2	27
Sensory-hearing impaired	1	3	1	1	6
Intellectual	17	11	16	20	64
Psychosocial	25	36	15	10	86
Other	82	20	18	46	166

There were 532 mentions of impairment types recorded across the four metropolitan dailies surveyed during this period. The DRPI measurement tool also enables the multiple recording of any mentions of primary, secondary and other impairment types in the same story in that, for example, it may mention a person with cerebral palsy and a person with learning disability or one person with multiple impairments.³ For the sake of clarity, though, total impairment mentions will only be examined here.

In percentage terms, the highest number of stories-related to other impairments with 31%. The second highest number was on people with mobility impairments at 27%.

The third highest was on people with psychosocial impairments at 16%. The fourth highest was on people with intellectual impairment at 12%. fifth equal was people in the sensory-deaf and sensory-blind impairment groupings at 5% each, sixth were stories about people with sensory low-vision at 3%, and seventh were articles about people with sensory-hearing impairments, at 1%.

The other category ranks highly because many stories failed to identify a specific impairment type or type(s). If they did do so, then disabled people were broadly identified, for example, as a ‘disabled person’ or ‘elderly disabled person’ in stories. Other impairment types, where these were named, included mentions of an ‘albino person’ and a ‘person with HIV’.

Most media stories, though, focused on people with readily visible impairments. Mobility-related impairments received a high percentage of mentions due to the Accident Compensation Corporation’s privacy breaches and their associated fallout and also the neglect/abuse cases involving people with mobility impairments, in supported residential and rest home environments. The Paralympics and disabled sport also accounted for a significant portion of stories relating to people with mobility impairments in 2012. The third placing for the psychosocial category can be attributed to the issues facing older people with dementia and other psychosocial impairments in rest home environments, and the ongoing connection made by the media between people with psychiatric disability and criminal offending. Similarly, the fourth placing for intellectual impairment has been influenced by the Atkinson case, as well as by the high number of abuse cases involving people with learning disability, and a series of segregated (special) education school closure issues coming to the fore.

By comparison, the reasons for the low level of coverage afforded to sensory-related impairments are not clear. A much wider survey of disability media coverage than this project was able to undertake, should examine whether this has been historically the case and whether this pattern appears to be ongoing within the New Zealand context. Undoubtedly, the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue, though, (which forms one half of the television and radio case study) certainly pushed the employment support issues facing Deaf and people with hearing impairments (as well as other disabled) New Zealanders into the wider public consciousness.

Note #3

This was achieved through the insertion of a ‘1’ value for primary, ‘2’ value for secondary and ‘x’ for any subsequent impairments.

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UNCRPD Topics

A crucial measure used by DRPI to ascertain media attitudes towards disability relates to how closely disability-connected topics raised apply to the Articles of the Convention.

The DRPI has grouped these articles into clusters given how the UNCRPD articles were written to closely co-relate to one another. These clusters are ‘privacy and family life’ (covering UNCRPD Articles 22 and 23, on respect for privacy, home and family life); ‘education’ (Article 24 on access to education); work (Article 27 ensuring the right to open employment and equal employment status); ‘social participation’ (Articles 18, 19, 20, 29, and 30 on independent living, nationality, personal mobility, participation in political and public life, culture, recreation, sports, and freedom of movement); ‘information and communication’ (Article 21, freedom of expression); ‘legal status and protection and access to justice’ (Articles 12, 13 and 14 on legal recognition, access to justice, liberty and security of the person, and the penalty for rights violations); ‘income security and support services’ (Articles 25, 26 and 33 on the need for an adequate standard of living); ‘health, habilitation and rehabilitation (Articles 25 and 26 on health, habilitation and rehabilitation services); ‘physical and mental security’ (Articles 10, 15, 16 and 17 on freedom from violence, exploitation, abuse, the right to life, and freedom from torture, and integrity of the person); ‘situations of risk’ (Article 11 on protection in times of armed conflict, natural disasters and as refugees); ‘monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ (Articles 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 on monitoring processes and mechanisms); and ‘other’ (any other articles not identified above such as those on awareness raising, etc.)

The table below illustrates the breakdown of news topics by UNCRPD articles in 2012.

Table 1.8: Disability stories by UNCRPD Articles 2012

UNCPRD-Related Topic	ODT	New Zealand Herald	Dominion Post/Stuff	The Press	Totals
Totals by newspaper	135	293	242	106	776
Privacy and Family Life	3	29	14	5	51
Education	11	14	16	13	54
Work	6	48	23	7	84
Social Participation	50	36	32	17	135
Information and Communication	1	4	20	9	34
Legal Status/ Protection/Access to Justice	5	33	16	5	59
Income Security/Support Services	20	64	41	9	134
Health, Habilitation and Rehabilitation	26	39	42	21	128
Physical and Mental Security	11	21	19	8	59
Situations of Risk	1	4	17	11	33
Monitoring the CRPD	0	1	1	1	3
Other	1	0	1	0	2

There were 776 UNCRPD categorisations of articles made across the four metropolitan dailies surveyed in 2012. As with the impairment type category, the DRPI measurement tool also enables the multiple recording of primary, secondary and other relevant UNCRPD articles in cases where more than one article was found to be relevant to the story. An example would be a story on ACC privacy breaches which would be a potential issue under both the privacy and family life and income and support services articles. Again (as with impairment types), for the sake of clarity, total UNCRPD category mentions will be referenced.

First equal are the social participation and income security and support services categories at 17%. Second is health, habilitation and rehabilitation at 16%, third highest was work at 11%. Fourth equal were stories that fall under the legal status and protection and access to justice, physical and mental security, and other categories at 8% each. Fifth equal were stories coded under the education, privacy and family life and other Convention Articles at 7% each. Sixth equal were the information and communication and situations of risk categories at 4% each. Seventh equal were the Convention monitoring and other categories at 0.5% each.

The first placing for stories falling under the social participation category comes down to the high number of stories published on the Paralympics and disabled sport (recreation and sporting participation) and the Mojo Mathers funding issue (political participation). The second placing for stories covered by the health, habilitation and rehabilitation and income security and support services articles transpired due to the media’s focus on the Atkinson case and ACC issues. The third placing for stories covered by the work category can be traced to the run of stories on employment issues, with the case of Mojo Mathers being the most prominent of these. The fourth equal placing for stories coming under the legal status and protection and access to justice as well as physical and mental security categories is again due to the Atkinson Case and the prevalence of abuse and neglect stories. The fifth equal ranking for stories in the education, privacy and family life and other areas came about due to the ongoing issues involving inclusive education and access to training for disabled people. The sixth equal ranking for stories on information and communications and situations of risk can be explained by the few stories found on information technology developments and stories regarding disabled people living in civil defence or conflict based emergency situations. Surprisingly, in terms of articles on situations of risk, there should have been more in this category given that 2012 marked the first full year since the February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. Many of the domestically-generated stories on situations of risk mainly focused on earthquake recovery or on the September 2012 ‘Shake Out’ national earthquake drill. More interestingly, within this context, the Wellington-based Dominion Post/Stuff carried more articles on situations of risk than the Christchurch-based The Press did.

The relative sample sizes could explain this anomaly but this is a pertinent observation to make in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes. There were few print stories that touched on either Convention monitoring or other articles with only a single recorded mention about the UN Convention monitoring process. More importantly, nearly all of the print articles analysed could be categorised under the main Convention Article groupings.

Cross cutting topics

Cross-cutting topics refer to stories based on population groups of disabled people and the systemic barriers impacting on their lives as covered in relevant Convention Articles. The main groupings are women and girls with disabilities (covered by CRPD Article 6); children (boys and girls) with disabilities (CRPD Article 7); older persons with disabilities; poverty and disability; ethnic background and disability; discrimination (CRPD Articles 3 and 5); reasonable accommodation (CRPD Articles 2, 5, 13, 14, 24, 27) and accessibility (CRPD Article 9).

The table below shows the breakdown of cross-cutting topics as they appeared in New Zealand daily newspapers during 2012.

Table 1.9: Cross-cutting topics in New Zealand newspapers 2012

Cross cutting topics	New Zealand Herald	Dominion Post/Stuff	The Press	ODT	Totals
Total mentions by newspaper	43	208	123	112	688
Women and Girls with Disabilities	30	48	37	13	128
Children with Disabilities	45	28	24	15	112
Older Persons with Disabilities	40	13	10	15	78
Poverty and Disability	23	9	8	14	54
Ethnic Background and Disability	4	3	2	2	11
Discrimination	43	40	7	13	103
Reasonable Accommodation	37	31	9	23	100
Accessibility	23	36	26	17	102

There was a total of 688 mentions of cross-cutting topics in the New Zealand daily press in this period. As with the previous four categories, the cross-cutting category enables multiple coding across categories in that, for example, a story about Sam Kahui, the Maori man who contested a Work and Income New Zealand decision on his access to emergency food grants would be coded as a story coming under the poverty and disability and ethnic background and disability codes.

When ranked in percentage terms (n=688), the highest number of cross-cutting references were recorded for women and girls with disabilities on 19%, the second highest for children at 16%, the third equal highest for stories on discrimination and accessibility at 15% each, the fourth highest number on reasonable accommodation with 14%, the fifth highest number on older persons with disabilities at 11%, the sixth highest on poverty and disability with 8%, and the seventh highest on ethnic background and disability at 2%.

A series of observations can be made here. First, with respect to population groups and disability, it is encouraging to see that disabled women and girls are being afforded a reasonable degree of coverage of their issues. Within wider society, women and girls with disabilities are dually disadvantaged on the basis that they are women who experience disability. Similarly, the issues surrounding disabled children had a relatively good degree of media coverage especially around education, recreational/sporting participation and abuse issues.

The issues facing older disabled people received a fair hearing within print media on issues pertaining to financial security, health care and abuse. Second, the level of print media coverage of ethnicity and disability issues was surprisingly low, particularly with regard to Maori and Pacific peoples. The issues confronting Maori and Pacific disabled people were not covered extensively by the four major metropolitan dailies. As intimated in the methodology section, a search of Mana magazine issues published during 2012 elicited no stories on disabled Maori either.

In terms of major systemic issues, it is unsurprising from a disability perspective to see that reasonable accommodation, accessibility, and discrimination issues figured highly in New Zealand print media coverage during 2012. When systemic issues are tabulated together as a sub-group, they account for 52% of coverage in the cross-cutting category. The Mojo Mathers funding issue was one of the most high profile stories that cut across three out of four of the systemic barriers sub-categories. However, there were also numerous other stories covering discrimination against wheelchair users using public transport, parents seeking to place their disabled children in inclusive school settings, and disabled people seeking to improve building access or even praising accessibility improvements. Overall, the systemic issues of accessibility, discrimination, reasonable accommodation and poverty reinforce one another too and it is a positive sign that New Zealand’s print media is gradually taking note of them.

Voice

One of the three most important measures that DRPI uses to measure media attitudes towards disability measures is voice. Voice refers to who is being quoted or paraphrased by media outlets in their reporting on disability issues. The DRPI spreadsheet tool categorises these voices into ten sub-groupings. These are no person with a disability is quoted or paraphrased; person with a disability; family member of a person with disability; organisation of persons with disability (DPO) (e.g. Disabled Persons Assembly, Association of Blind Citizens, Balance New Zealand); Non-government organisation that is not a DPO (e.g. CCS Disability Action, Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind); service provider (e.g. Idea Services, rest homes); researcher (e.g. geneticist, physician); charitable organization (e.g. Koru Care); government official (elected or appointed e.g. MP); and other (e.g. lawyers, tutors, company managers.)⁴

The table below shows the voices quoted on disability issues within our print media during 2012.

Table 1.10: Voice in disability media stories

Category	New Zealand Herald	Dominion Post/Stuff	The Press	ODT	Totals
Newspaper Totals	446	205	111	229	991
No persons with disability	143	53	29	69	294
Person with a Disability	47	28	14	18	107
Family member	34	15	8	7	64
DPO	3	0	2	0	5
Non-DPO NGO	32	15	10	17	74
Service Provider	20	17	14	9	60
Researcher	14	10	4	9	37
Government Official	59	6	1	36	102
Charitable Organisation	50	43	22	33	148
Other	44	18	7	31	100

Note #4

The DRPI tool uses the terms ‘Charitable organisation’, ‘service provider’ and ‘non-DPO NGO’. Within the New Zealand context, disability organisations which provide services or fundraise on behalf of disabled people are more often than not one and the same organisation. Therefore, they are commonly referred to as disability service providers. However, slight distinctions are made between them for the purposes of this report.

Return

There were 991 persons or organisations (voices) quoted in the publications surveyed. Again, the voice category enables multiple coding across categories in that, for example, both a disabled person and a family member with disability can be quoted in the same story.

When ranked in percentage terms, the most prominent voice is that belonging to no person with a disability at 29%. The second highest number are those of charitable organisations on 15%, in third equal place are the voices of persons with a disability and others with 11% each, the fourth highest are government official(s) at 10%, the fifth highest are DPO non-governmental at 7%, the sixth highest are family members and service providers with 6%, the seventh highest are researchers with 4%, and the eighth highest are Disabled People’s Organisations at 1%.

The most crucial finding from the voice analysis is the absence of a disability voice in the print media. When all of the categories with the exception of the person with disability and disabled persons organisations categories are tabulated together, 88% of the voices projected on disability in the print media are found to be those belonging to non-disabled people. This 88% can be categorised as the ‘non-disabled’ voices grouping and the 12% who act as the direct voices of disabled people can be categorised as the ‘disabled voices’ grouping.

Leaving aside families and every other non-disabled voice, the 29% of stories that failed to even quote a single disabled person was significantly high. As the figures make clear, the four major dailies heavily relied on non-disabled people for quotes in their disability-related stories. Realistically, while it would be impossible to have a disabled person quoted in every disability-related story, it appears that the New Zealand print media did not actively seek out disabled people for comment on the stories that impacted them during 2012.

Framing Perspectives

This DRPI category looks at how disabled people and their issues are being presented in news media items. DRPI uses four framing perspectives to measure this. These are the medical perspective whereby disability is viewed as a bio-medical, physiological or psychological condition presented through a medical lens and only ‘curable’ through medical or genetic interventions; the heroic/overcoming perspective where disability is seen through its representation in a heroic or superhuman context and where the individual resilience or personal overcoming of disability is given primary importance; the economic/charity perspective where disability is framed by the charitable model promoting the idea that disabled people are considered either as victims or as a fiscal burden; and the rights perspective in which disability is placed within the larger social, political and economic context where the removal of barriers to the participation of disabled people within society is promoted.

The table below outlines how the print media framed their disability-related stories in 2012.

Table 1.11: Framing perspectives in print media 2012

Framing Perspectives	Medical	Heroic/Overcoming	Economic/Charity	Rights
Totals	158	90	112	250
NZ Herald	75	17	27	135
Dominion Post/Stuff	24	41	48	29
The Press	14	28	26	13
ODT	45	4	11	73

There were a total of 610 scores recorded using the four framing perspectives across all of the four metropolitan dailies in 2012. Multiple coding was also possible for this category as, for example, an ODT movie review about the film The Sessions was coded as being primarily a rights based story and secondarily as a medically based one given that it talked about the male lead disabled character’s experiences in wanting to experience sex while also emphasising the medical aspects of his impairment.⁵

Note #5

These categories were measured through the insertion of a ‘1’ value for primary, ‘2’ value for secondary and ‘x’ for any subsequent framing perspectives, thereby producing the scores for each publication and category.

Return

When the framing perspectives are ranked by category and percentage (n=610), the highest number of stories were in the rights category with 41%, the second largest group of stories in the medical category with 26%, the third largest were based on the economic/charity model at 18% and the fourth largest on the heroic/ overcoming model on 15%.

From first appearances, it seems that the print media are publishing more of their stories from a rights-based perspective. To have a plurality of stories framed from a rights-based perspective in the print media is an encouraging sign. Pivotally, it is the New Zealand Herald that is leading the way in this respect but the reasons for why this publication is doing so were not evident. However, when the non-rights based categories (medical/charity/heroic) are tabulated together, they account for 59% of all stories published in the four dailies during 2012.

When examining the figures by publication, in raw score terms, both the Dominion Post/Stuff and The Press scored highly when it came to the number of heroic/overcoming and economic/charity category stories published. The ODT, meanwhile, had a very interesting distributional spread at either end of the continuum with a significant number of medical and rights based stories produced and very few from a heroic/overcoming and economic/charity perspective. While the New Zealand Herald leads in terms of the number of rights-based stories published of any of the four dailies, it still tended to medicalise a significant proportion of its disability coverage during 2012.

Overall, when viewed from a disability perspective, it is evident that the major print media took more of a paternalistic/medicalised view of disabled people and disability issues during 2012.

Language

This paternalistic/medicalised view of disability occasionally came through in the language used by our four main dailies to describe disability.

This last DRPI measure asks monitors to record any negative/devaluing language that appears in media outlets regarding disability. According to this measure, our four largest print dailies avoided the overuse of negative/derogatory language about disability in 2012, but, nonetheless archaic disability language did manage to seep through at intervals.

The most common negative terms deployed to describe disabled people were ‘suffers/suffered/suffering’ (25), ‘special’ (18), ‘handicap/handicapped’ (17), ‘crippling/cripple’ (9), ‘afflicted’ (9), ‘wheelchair/bed bound’ (5), and ‘overcame’ (4). Other dishonourable mentions go to ‘despite disability’ (2) with singular references being made to the terms ‘mad’, ‘infirm’, ‘senile’, ‘bad’, ‘sick’, ‘delusional’, ‘burden’, ‘demented,’ ‘octogenarian’, ‘nonagenarian’, and ‘middle aged biddy’.

The use of these and other negative descriptors indicates that the print media have ongoing issues with separating disability from illness. Terms like ‘mad’, ‘bad’, and ‘delusional’ were used when describing people with psychiatric or psychological disabilities. The terms ‘senile’, ‘octogenarian’, and ‘nonagenarian’, meanwhile, were used when referring to older disabled people. ‘Handicap’ and ‘handicapped’ were terms used to denote people with physical and intellectual impairments while the terms ‘crippling’ and ‘crippled’ alluded to people with physical impairments.

Furthermore, there were some insensitive and confusing statements made in articles associated with disability. The ODT, for example, had an article describing how a woman with Cerebral Palsy supposedly had her ‘confidence take a beating’ due to living with that impairment. Another commentary carried by the same newspaper inappropriately employed humour as a means of belittling people with mobility impairments when its author wrote that she could get a mobility parking card by doing ‘funny walks’. The oddest statement seen, however, came in a New Zealand Herald article on disabled sportspeople which listed one athlete as actually “carrying a disability”. Another interesting quote in the same newspaper referred to how a product “was produced by a disabled group” rather than by ‘a group of disabled people’. Heroic/overcoming language came through in another statement about the death of a former New Zealand disabled athlete in Western Australia where a whanau member was quoted as saying that the athlete had “lived life more to the fullest than an able bodied person”.

What can be derived from this analysis of language is that the New Zealand print media sometimes uses archaic language which, implicitly or explicitly, seeks to marginalise or segregate disabled people from wider society. Nevertheless, while the New Zealand’s print media does carry many good examples of rights-based language, the use of negative, belittling terms still came through during 2012.

Part B: Television and Radio Analysis Case Studies – Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue and London Paralympics 2012

Introduction and Methodology - Media outlets/Impairment Type/UNCRPD Articles

As outlined in the previous print media analysis, the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue focuses on the initial denial and then acceptance of New Zealand’s first openly deaf and disabled MP’s request to Parliamentary Services for funding to pay for electronic note takers in early 2012. This story involved a number of key players. The most notable of these were Mojo Mathers herself, her Green Party parliamentary caucus colleagues including Co-Leaders Metiria Turei and Russel Norman, as well as Whip Gareth Hughes. On the Parliamentary Services side, then Speaker Lockwood Smith (a National Government MP) played a pivotal role in events. While this story is not the most significant in the high profile category, it still elicited a wide range of opinion about the issues raised including those around how best to support disabled people in the workplace.

In numerical terms, 20 television and radio video and audio items were analysed from the Television New Zealand, TV3, Radio New Zealand National and Newstalk ZB websites. The search was restricted to audio and video items as watching and listening to these gave a clearer sense of tone than broadcast transcripts could. A search for Mojo Mathers related content was also made on the Prime Television and Radio Live websites but no video or audio archival material could be located on either website. All items were searched for, using the key terms ‘Mojo Mathers 2012’. Therefore, Prime Television (which runs a short half-hour evening news bulletin) and Radio Live had to be excluded from this analysis. Undoubtedly, though, these outlets carried reports on the funding row as well.

Nevertheless, the type of impairment that Mathers has is, of course, sensory impaired-deaf and the UNCRPD Articles that the Mojo Mathers case traverses are all covered by those relating to work, information and communication and, very importantly, social participation. Specifically, with regard to the social participation Convention Articles, the one that Parliament initially contravened in Ms Mathers’ case is Article 29 on participation in political life. The relevant cross-cutting topics for this case all related to those around women and girls with disabilities, discrimination, reasonable accommodation and accessibility.

Please note that a number of categories were altered on the DRPI spreadsheet to accommodate the changes that were necessary to denote the various formats used by the news and current affairs sections of the main New Zealand broadcasters. Therefore, changes appear from the print media categories in that section becomes type of programme, type of story has a series of new sub-categories and word length becomes length of audio/video. All other DRPI measures have been left unaltered.

Type of programme

The type of programmes analysed for the purposes of this case study were news, current affairs and opinion-editorial/commentary pieces. These are the mainstays of any television or radio news and current affairs operation. All of the outlets analysed have journalists based at the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Wellington.

The breakdown for type of programme by media outlet is contained in the table below.

Table 2: Type of programme - Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue

Programme type and broadcaster	News	Current Affairs	Lifestyle	Totals by broadcaster
Category Totals	16	3	1	20
TVNZ	5	2	1	8
TV3	5	0	0	5
Radio NZ National	6	0	0	6
Newstalk ZB	0	1	0	1

The highest number of items on the Mojo Mathers funding issue appeared as news stories with 80%, the second highest were as current affairs content with 15%, and the third highest number were as lifestyle programme content (namely, TVNZ’s Attitude disability programme) with 5%. In terms of broadcaster story share, TVNZ broadcast the most stories on the Mojo Mathers funding issue with 40%, second highest was Radio New Zealand National with 30%, third highest was TV3 with 30% and Newstalk ZB was last with 5%.

There are several explanations as to why the amount of broadcast content on this issue varied by broadcaster. Firstly, TVNZ came first no doubt due to it being one of the largest (if not the largest) news gathering organisations in the country.

Secondly, both Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB were able to give good levels of coverage to Mojo Mathers given that in the former station’s case it has two flagship news programmes (Morning Report and Checkpoint) which extensively cover news, whereas, in the latter’s case it has a solely news and talkback-based format.

Type of story

The main types of story filed on the Mojo Mathers funding issue were: reporter filed news reports (brief reports filed by journalists); current affairs show interviews (for example, TVNZ Breakfast, Close Up, TV3 Campbell Live and Newstalk ZB Mike Hosking Drive); and lifestyle programmes (TVNZ Attitude).

The table below shows the type of story that the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue was covered under.

Table 2.1: Type of story - Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue.

Story Type	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Newstalk ZB	Story Type Totals
Broadcaster totals	8	5	6	1	20
Reporter filed news	3	4	3	0	10
Current affairs show interviews	4	1	3	1	9
Lifestyle	1	0	0	0	1

Overall, the highest ranking category, in percentage terms (n=25) is reporter filed news reports with 50%, the second highest number were current affairs show interviews at 45%, and the third highest number were lifestyle programmes at 5%.

When measured by broadcaster, TVNZ, TV3, and Radio New Zealand National carried most of their Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding content as either reporter filed news or current affairs show interviews. By contrast, the Newstalk ZB audio that was able to be retrieved came in the form of a radio interview with Mojo Mathers by drive host Mike Hosking. The lifestyle content emanated (as mentioned earlier) from TVNZ’s Attitude programme.

Length of audio/video

On the basis of audio/video length, all of the Mojo Mathers stories came within the following time lengths: less than 5 minutes; 5-10 minutes; and 10-30 minutes. Broadcast duration was determined by measuring the maximum broadcast times that appeared in both the audio and video stream windows.

The table below provides the breakdown of item duration by broadcasting outlet.

Table 2.2: Time duration of stories on Mojo Mathers funding issue

Time Durations	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Newstalk ZB	Totals by Length
Totals	8	5	6	1	20
Less than 5 minutes	5	5	5	0	15
5-10 minutes	1	0	0	1	3
10-30 minutes	2	0	0	0	2

Clearly, the highest percentage of the broadcast Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding stories were of less than 5 minutes duration with 80% and second equal were items in the 5-10 minutes and 10-30 minutes categories on 10% each. Most of the less than 5 and 5-10 minute items were news stories or short interview/commentary pieces. The longest two items were TVNZ programmes - these being a 30 minute documentary on Mathers by the Attitude programme and a 15 minute Close Up segment featuring both Speaker Lockwood Smith and Mathers.

Content duration does impact on an audience’s understanding of an issue. Brief radio and television news reports only seek to communicate the basic facts about a story to the listening audience. Longer form stories/interviews, however, tend to drill down further into issues. From a disability perspective, TVNZ’s Attitude programme, based as it is on disability and airing in the non-commercial 8.30am Sunday morning timeslot, broadcast an extensive half-hour profile of Mathers in August 2012. This enabled the Mojo Mathers funding issue to be examined from within the wider context of looking at her work as an MP.

Voice

What voices did our broadcasters speak to and project on the Mojo Mathers story?

The table below elaborates on who the main groups quoted were.

Table 2.3: TV and Radio Voice in Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue

Category	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Newstalk ZB	Category Totals
Broadcaster Voice Totals	24	13	17	1	56
No persons with disability	1	1	0	0	2
Person with a Disability	6	3	6	1	16
DPO	0	2	0	0	2
Non-DPO NGO	2	0	1	0	3
Government Official	6	3	4	0	13
Charitable Organisation	2	0	1	0	3
Other	2	4	6	0	17

There were 56 voices quoted by broadcasters in their stories on the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue. Also, out of the main voice categories only the no person with a disability; person with a disability; DPO; non-DPO non-governmental organisation; government official; charitable organisation; and other categories registered any voices.

What can be discerned from the figures by category (n=56) is that the highest number of voices belonged to others who were, in this case, broadcasters in the form of newsreaders, talkshow hosts, reporters and journalists with 30%. The second highest number were those of a person with a disability (mainly being Mojo Mathers herself) at 29%. The third highest were (unsurprisingly) government officials (comprised mainly of MPs) with 23%. In fourth equal place were the voices of non-DPO NGO and charitable organisations at 5% each, and in fifth equal place were the voices of no persons with disability and Disabled People’s Organisations at 4% each.

Three key observations can be made about who has been a voice in the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue. Firstly, broadcasters dominate because it is they who, on television and radio, introduce and voice the items. Secondly, broadcasters probably felt more comfortable in being able to interview Mathers given that she speaks English as her first language. Thirdly, and most notably, Disabled People’s Organisations were asked to contribute their perspectives on only two occasions, thereby marginalising the voices of organisations run by and for disabled people on this issue.

Moreover, in respect of the disability organisations vying for media attention on the Mojo Mathers funding issue were Deaf Aotearoa (DPO) and the charitable/non-governmental organisation the National Foundation for the Deaf (NFD). Among the broadcasters, TV3 sought out the view of Deaf Aotearoa on two occasions whereas TVNZ interviewed an NFD representative on one occasion. It is also pertinent to note that TVNZ (being the broadcaster of Attitude) and Radio New Zealand National (the broadcaster of One-in-Five) recorded the same number of interviews featuring a disabled person (either with Mojo Mathers or Deaf Aotearoa) and Newstalk ZB performed one interview with her.

Framing perspectives

Most interestingly, how did our media frame the Mojo Mathers issue from a disability perspective?

The table below measures framing perspectives across all media surveyed on this story.

Table 2.4: Framing perspectives for Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue

Framing Perspectives	Medical	Heroic/Overcoming	Economic/Charity	Rights
Totals	0	0	12	19

Across all framing perspectives, a total score of 31 was recorded.

With respect to the Mojo Mathers story, the rights-based perspective ranked first with 61% and second ranked were stories filed from an economic/charity perspective at 39%. There were no analysed stories that could be placed in either the heroic/overcoming or medical categories.

It is encouraging to see that a majority of the broadcast media stories on this issue were filed from a rights-based perspective. However, as not all audio content was available from Newstalk ZB this number may be overstated. Another observation is that the media’s perspectives on the issue shifted slowly from an economic/charity perspective to more of a rights based one as the issue moved towards resolution. In fact, TVNZ political journalist Jessica Mutch remarked on a TVNZ Breakfast interview how surprisingly supportive public opinion had been on this issue as the public in most cases of politicians seeking more resources to support their work are usually hostile to the very idea of them doing so. This draws another question into play relating to whether the media made assumptions about public attitudes on this issue based on the public’s widespread antagonism towards politicians or whether their coverage shifted when outlets began to realise that Mathers’ case was seen as an exception by the public? There can be no conclusive answer to this question apart from to observe that there is a need for a wider disability media project to analyse the ‘chicken and egg’ question of the interplay between media attitudes and public attitudes on disability.

Across media outlets, TVNZ examined the Mojo Mathers funding issue from an economic/charity perspective with a rights based perspective coming secondary to this. By contrast, TV3 mainly took more of a rights based perspective with a charity perspective coming secondary to this. This is probably due (as mentioned earlier) to TVNZ placing greater store on seeking out the views of a disability charity (in this case the NFD) compared to TV3 which sought out the views of DPO, Deaf Aotearoa. Radio New Zealand, meanwhile, initially viewed the issue from an economic/charity perspective but then began to take more of a rights-based approach as the issue neared resolution and as public opinion shifted. Newstalk ZB took a rights-based approach in the one on-air interview that could be retrieved from their website with Mathers.

Language

The language used in covering the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue conveyed a sense of a broadcast media which saw the issue (at least at the outset) from an economic/charitable perspective. There were five significant negative/devaluing terms recorded during monitoring of the broadcast content on this issue.

The five most commonly referenced negative terms were ‘extra funding’ (2) and ‘special funding’ (2). Both TVNZ and TV3 used the term ‘extra funding’ once while the two references to ‘special funding’ originated solely from TVNZ. The use of these terms by media outlets implies that Mathers was asking for additional funding for notetakers whereas the real issue centred around her and her party seeking funding from Parliamentary Services so that the Greens could avoid drawing on their own members budget to fund this.

Television and Radio Case Study Two: London Paralympics 2012

Introduction and Methodology

This second case study focuses on the London Paralympics 2012. These games followed the London Olympic Games staged for non-disabled athletes. Like the Mojo Mathers parliamentary funding issue, this story was not one of the most predominant in the high profile section of the print media category. However, the Games were nevertheless, a significant international sporting event.

Indeed, this is the case as just two decades ago the Paralympics barely rated any prominent mention in either the domestic or international media. However, in 2012, the tide had well and truly turned as international media recognised the Paralympics as a major global sporting event. This media coverage has produced increasing interest, on the part of the public, in the achievements of Paralympic athletes.

Consequently, some have become high profile sporting celebrities in their own right with South African amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, and New Zealand swimmer Sophie Pascoe becoming household names. The Paralympics have also come to symbolise the desire of disabled people to be seen as citizens, both within their own nations and globally.

The reason why the monitoring project team chose to undertake a case study of Paralympics-based TV and radio coverage is that sport is better viewed or covered by our broadcast than by our print media. People want to see pictures of their favourite sports teams in action or, at least, be able to hear their exploits. People’s appetite for watching or hearing sport means that the Olympic Games, staged every four years, has become one of the most watched (if not the most watched) broadcast sporting event on Earth. Comparatively speaking, its Paralympics equivalent (as noted above) has not been historically favoured with the same amount of coverage as its Olympics counterpart. Nonetheless, this comparative imbalance in broadcast coverage of the Paralympics is beginning to be addressed by international broadcasters.

In New Zealand, Sky Sport aired both live and delayed coverage of the London Paralympics as the main broadcast rights holder in this country. Therefore, Sky Television must be acknowledged for its role in being the first New Zealand broadcaster to provide Games coverage on at least a daily basis which is more than any domestic broadcaster had ever attempted before. From a disability-rights perspective, this was a major step forward. However, Sky Sport’s Paralympics coverage was not as extensive as their coverage of the Olympics had been. This was the case as while Prime Television (as part of the Sky Network) served as the main free-to-air broadcaster of both the Olympics and Paralympics, they provided round-the-clock coverage of the former while only providing a late-night and Sunday morning highlights package of the latter.

This case study examines 65 television and radio news and current affairs stories from the Paralympics. The audio and video retrieved originates from the main free-to-air broadcasters, namely, TVNZ, TV3 and Radio New Zealand National, plus specialist radio broadcasters Radio Sport (which has linkages to Newstalk ZB) and Radio Live (which has linkages to TV3). Keyword searches using the terms ‘Paralympics 2012’ yielded the audio and video feeds. Due to time and resource constraints only 65 audio and video items from these broadcasters were able to be analysed. We acknowledge other sports broadcasters, including Prime Television and, as mentioned above, Sky Sport. Regrettably, however, due to the pressures described, we have omitted these outlets and their extensive sports news programmes from our analysis. Furthermore in undertaking this analysis we also acknowledge, from a disability standpoint, that there was coverage on all the main news and sports programmes but not on the same scale as that afforded the Olympics.

Nevertheless, the 2012 Paralympics gave all media outlets the ability to discuss disability prominently in their stories. To this end, 83% of Paralympics stories (n=54) gave prominent mentions to disability while only 17% (n=11) failed to do so. In terms of visual images displayed, 67% of stories (n=44) displayed images (all being on television) while 33% (n=21) either did not (if they were on television) or could not (being non-applicable as they were radio broadcasts).

In UNCRPD terms, the Paralympics predominantly fell under the social participation (participation in culture, recreation and sport) (n=59), and health, habilitation and rehabilitation (n=10) Articles. A very small number of Paralympics stories could also be held to fit under the privacy and family life (n=1) and work (n=1) articles of the Convention.

Nearly all of the categories used to analyse print media and disability content (apart from section placement) will be used in this analysis of New Zealand television and radio coverage of the Paralympics.

Type of programme

There were three types of programme that aired Paralympics coverage, mainly, news/sports news (e.g. One News, 3 News), current affairs (e.g. Campbell Live/Close Up), TV/Radio opinion commentary, lifestyle (e.g. Attitude) and other (e.g. web only radio programmes and Radio New Zealand National’s night time show) programmes.

The table below provides a breakdown of the type of programme that Paralympics coverage aired by media outlet.

Table 3: Type of programme – Paralympics television and radio coverage

Category	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Radio Live	Radio Sport	Totals
Broadcaster Voice Totals	20	22	21	1	1	56
News/Sports News	10	21	13	0	0	44
Current Affairs	7	1	0	0	0	8
TV/Radio Opinion Commentary	0	0	3	0	0	3
Disability lifestyle	3	0	0	0	0	3
Other	0	0	6	1	1	7

Significantly, the major category under which Paralympics stories (n=65) appeared on the nation’s television screens and radios were as news or sports news items with 67% of Paralympics coverage coming to New Zealanders in this way.

The second highest number appeared on current affairs programmes with 12%. The third highest number appeared as other programming with 11%. In fourth equal place were items that appeared as TV/Radio opinion commentary or on disability lifestyle programmes at 5% each.

These findings verify that the Paralympics received appropriate coverage in terms of being perceived by the main media outlets as news, sports news and/or current affairs items. From a purely anecdotal standpoint, Olympics-related news stories were similarly broadcast on news, sports news or current affairs programmes. At least in this regard, television and radio afforded equal treatment in terms of the coverage they gave to both the Olympics and Paralympics. The appearance of Paralympics coverage on the main broadcasting outlets news, sports news, and current affairs programming afforded many New Zealanders (especially those who were not Sky Sports subscribers) their only chance of seeing the New Zealand Paralympics team in action or hearing about their achievements. Given the socio-economic composition of New Zealand’s disabled population, free-to-air news and sports news broadcasts were probably the only way that they could engage with the Paralympics at all. Notably, TVNZ’s Attitude went out of its way to cover significant pre-Paralympics build up events and some of the Paralympics itself. However, TVNZ screened most of the Attitude programme’s reports on the Paralympics after the Games had ended. Another important aspect to note is that New Zealand’s Paralympic athletes enjoyed only minimal coverage of their efforts in the build-up to the Games but this was rectified during the Paralympics themselves and in the post-Games period when the team’s achievements received far greater coverage from the broadcasters surveyed.

Type of story

The main types of Paralympics TV and radio stories appeared as: current affairs show items (e.g. reports on TVNZ Close Up or TV3’s Campbell Live); reporter filed news reports; radio editorial (all from Radio New Zealand National); international wire (e.g. television or radio feed provided by overseas-based broadcasters); and other (e.g. newsreader read short items or web only programming).

Table 3.1: Type of story – Paralympics television and radio coverage

Type of story	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Radio Live	Radio Sport	Totals
Broadcasting outlet totals	19	23	21	1	1	65
Current affairs show	5	2	0	0	0	7
Reporter filed news report	4	10	8	0	0	22
Radio Editorial	0	0	3	0	0	3
International wire	0	5	1	0	0	6
Other	10	6	9	1	1	27

In terms of story type, the highest number of stories filed came under the ‘other’ category with 41%. In second place were reporter-filed news reports at 34%. Third place went to current affairs programmes at 11%. In fourth place were international wire stories filed by London-based correspondents at 9%. In fifth place were radio editorial items (all via Radio NZ National) at 5%.

The high number of stories in the other category can be explained by the number of long form interviews, web-only programming and disability programmes which were analysed. Also there were a reasonable number of newsreader read brief reports which could not be categorised as reporter filed news. However, when the totals for reporter filed news and current affairs and international wire stories are tabulated together (representing 54% of the total) this illustrates that news and current affairs stories contributed significantly to television and radio coverage of the Paralympics on New Zealand’s free-to-air broadcasting networks.

Length of audio/video

On the basis of audio/video length, all of the Paralympics television and radio stories were found to come within the following time lengths: less than five minutes; 5-10 minutes; 10-30 minutes; and 30 minutes and over.

Table 3.2: Length and duration of Paralympics television and radio reporting

Time	Less than 5 minutes	5-10 minutes	10-30 minutes	30 minutes and over
Totals	47	5	12	1
TVNZ	13	3	0	1
TV3	22	0	0	0
RNZ National	12	2	10	0
Radio Live	0	0	1	0
Radio Sport	0	0	1	0

In terms of the length and duration of items analysed (n=65), the highest number were in the less than five minutes category at 72%. The second highest number was items in the 10-30 minutes category at 18%. The third highest number was items in the 5-10 minute category at 8%. The fourth highest number was items in the 30 minutes and over category at 2%.

What can be discerned from these figures is that many of the television and radio reports on the Paralympics which aired were of short duration. Again, this effectively denied the majority of New Zealanders who could not access pay television of full, in-depth coverage of the Paralympics. Radio New Zealand National, of all the free-to-air broadcasters, provided extensive coverage of Paralympics-related stories through long form news items, interviews and a number of radio commentaries which included comment on the Games. Both Radio Live and Radio Sport (on the audio that could be found from these stations websites) carried extensive interviews with both former and current Paralympians on what had transpired in London. These long-form interviews gave New Zealand viewers and listeners a taste of the London Games experience from a Paralympian’s perspective.

Type of impairment

There were 86 mentions of impairment types recorded on television and radio coverage of the 2012 London Paralympics.

The table below breaks down the types of impairment mentioned in Paralympics coverage.

Table 3.3: Type of impairment covered

Type of Impairment	Totals
Total impairment mentions	86
Mobility	41
Sensory-blind	18
Sensory-low vision	3
Sensory deaf	0
Sensory-hearing impaired	4
Intellectual	1
Psychosocial	1
Psychosocial	18

The highest number of Paralympics-related impairment references recorded was for people with mobility impairment at 48%. The second highest number was for people in the other and sensory-blind impairment categories at 21% each. The third highest number of mentions was of people in the sensory-hearing impaired category on 5%, the fourth highest were people in the sensory-low vision category at 3%, and in fifth equal place were people with intellectual and psychosocial impairments on 1% each.

Mobility ranks as the most commonly mentioned impairment grouping due, in large part, to the coverage accorded to mobility impaired athletes such as, for example, swimmers Sophie Pascoe and Cameron Leslie. Furthermore, the Paralympics has historically been (and still is) dominated by mobility impaired athletes, hence the high rate of mentions for this grouping. More pertinently, as mentioned earlier in the print media section, the fact that many broadcast media outlets tend to gravitate towards people with mobility impairment in their coverage could be another factor that drove the high rate of references to mobility impairment in Paralympics stories.

The high rate of references to other impairment groups comes down to the fact that many stories mentioned disabled athletes without going into the specifics of their impairment. Also, the high rankings for sensory-blind and sensory-low vision, respectively was a consequence of the frequent media profiling of blind swimmer and gold medallist Mary Fisher, and cyclist Philippa Gray who, due to her experiencing Usher’s Syndrome, accounts for all of the sensory-low vision and sensory-hearing impaired mentions. Historical factors can explain the absence of any mentions of intellectual and psychosocial (mainly neurological-based) impairments given that the Paralympics have only begun admitting these groups into competition in recent years. In fact, the only mentions of psychosocial or intellectual impairment within the analysed sample came in a One-in-Five interview with the Paralympics New Zealand official responsible for classifying disabled competitors.

Cross-cutting topics

As for cross-cutting topics, the London Paralympics generated 120 mentions of cross-cutting topics. All DRPI sub-categories were mentioned in coverage of the London Games except for poverty and disability (which is omitted).

The table below provides a composite break down of cross cutting topics by category for the London 2012 Games.

Table 3.4: Cross-cutting topics in London Paralympics TV Radio Coverage

Cross cutting topics	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Radio Live	Radio Sport	Totals
Total mentions by broadcasting outlet	40	34	43	2	1	120
Women and Girls with Disabilities	17	11	12	1	0	41
Children with Disabilities	2	1	3	0	0	6
Older Persons with Disabilities	0	0	1	0	0	1
Ethnic Background and Disability	0	0	4	0	0	4
Discrimination	0	0	1	0	0	1
Reasonable Accommodation	1	0	1	0	0	2
Accessibility	20	22	21	1	1	65

The highest number of cross-cutting topics in broadcast media coverage of the London 2012 Paralympics were stories on accessibility at 54%. Second were stories on women and girls with disabilities at 34%. The third most common topic was children with disabilities at 5%. Fourth were ethnic background and disability at 3%. Fifth were stories referencing reasonable accommodation at 2%. Sixth were stories pertaining to older persons with disabilities and discrimination at 1% each.

The accessibility of the Games featured as an important element in media coverage. Accessibility was discussed by the broadcast media in terms of the venues used and sports played. Paralympics broadcast coverage made much of the success of the women in the team such as, for example, Sophie Pascoe, Mary Fisher, Philippa Gray, and Fiona Southorn. From a gender and disability perspective, this is an encouraging sign as it may well translate to more disabled women and girls becoming involved in sport in the future. Children with disabilities ranked surprisingly well given the presence of the youngest team member Nikita Howarth who was just 13 years old at the time of London 2012. Radio New Zealand National aired a number of short interviews with Howarth and her family.

Ethnic background and disability rated much lower mentions in broadcast media coverage of the Paralympics. In fact, if it were not for mentions broadcast on Radio New Zealand National’s Te Manu Korihi Maori news programme, the analysts would not have picked up anything about a Maori athlete being named to represent Aotearoa/New Zealand in London. Reasonable accommodation was specifically referenced, for example, in video of an American archer who was ‘an amputee’ from the TV3 website. Interestingly, the only specific references to an older disabled person came in two items on New Zealand’s oldest athlete at London 2012, Peter Martin who appeared on a RNZ National One-in-Five programme and in a TV3 sports story. Discrimination surfaced only as a cross-cutting topic on one occasion illustrating the Paralympics reputation for eliminating discriminatory barriers facing disabled people in sport.

Voice

What voices did our broadcasters capture on the topic of the London 2012 Paralympics?

The table below lists the voices that were captured in London Paralympics broadcast coverage

Table 3.5: TV and Radio Voice in London Paralympics 2012 coverage

Category	TVNZ	TV3	RNZ National	Radio Live	Radio Talk	Totals
Totals by media outlet	32	29	41	2	2	106
No persons with disability	0	8	7	0	0	15
Person with a Disability	17	16	16	1	1	51
Family member of a person with disability	3	2	1	0	0	6
DPO	0	0	0	0	0	0
Non-DPO NGO	1	0	6	0	0	7
Service Provider	0	0	1	0	0	1
Researcher	2	0	1	0	0	3
Charitable Organisation	1	0	0	0	0	1
Government Official	0	0	1	0	0	1
Other	8	3	8	1	1	21

There was a total of 106 voices captured by our free-to-air broadcasters in the course of covering London 2012. The highest number of voices came in the form of disabled people themselves at 48%. The second highest number were the voices of others (mainly Paralympics coaches, support staff and media interviewers/newsreaders) at 20%. The third highest were instances where no voices of disabled people were heard at 15%. Fourth highest were the voices of non-DPO NGOs at 6%. Fifth highest were the families of disabled people at 5%. Sixth was the researcher category at 3%. Seventh equal were the voices of service providers, charitable organisations and government officials at 1% each.

Our primary free-to-air broadcasters performed well in seeking out comment from the disabled athletes who participated in London 2012. When the voices of the family/whanau members of our Paralympic athletes are added, this means that the perspectives of disabled people and their families came to account for just over half (53%) of the broadcast sample. With respect to the non-disabled NGOs, Paralympics New Zealand emerges as the main organisation quoted, mainly through Radio New Zealand National. The voices of Disabled People’s Organisations were not recorded within this sample. Whilst recognising the comparatively high number of disabled voices broadcast on Paralympics coverage, there were still a significant number of Games-related stories (15%) which failed to include any disability voices at all.

Framing perspectives

How did our broadcast media frame their coverage of the London 2012 Paralympics?

The table below measures framing perspectives in total across all media surveyed on this story.

Table 3.6: Framing perspectives for London Paralympics 2012 television and radio coverage

Framing perspectives	Medical	Heroic/Overcoming	Economic/Charity	Rights
Totals	15	26	0	49

Across all framing perspectives, a total score of 90 was recorded.

The highest number of these stories presented a rights-based approach at 54%. The second highest were stories framed in a heroic/overcoming manner with 29%. Third highest were the stories based on a medical framework with 17%. None of the stories recorded in the London Paralympics 2012 sample came from an economic/charity perspective although this could be understated due to the relatively small sample size.

In disability terms, it is encouraging to see that our broadcast media took a largely rights-based approach to its coverage of London 2012. The Paralympics, after all, elevates the issue of disability rights into the forefront of the public’s consciousness more than any other event does. As one former Paralympian noted during a radio interview, the London Paralympics organisers had intentionally stressed the need for media covering the event to leave their preconceptions about disability at the stadium gate or venue door.

Conversely, 46% of broadcast Paralympics stories emphasised the heroic/overcoming and medical aspects of disability. In noting this factor, it is not unusual, however, for non-disabled sportspeople to sometimes be referred to in heroic or overcoming terms. Heroic/overcoming attitudes when attached to disability, though, tend to separate disabled people from non-disabled people. Impairment factors also continue to exist for disabled athletes in everyday life meaning that no physical, psychological, or intellectual ‘overcoming’ of them can be experienced.

Similarly, the medical aspects of personal impairment were sometimes heavily emphasised in broadcast coverage of the Paralympics. Acknowledgement must be made of the fact that at times medical explanations were relevant as, for example, in RNZ National’s One-in-Five programme interview with the Paralympics New Zealand official charged with classifying athletes, about the classification system. However, most of the medical based coverage became inappropriate in dwelling heavily on how previously non-disabled athletes had acquired their impairments. One example of this came in a TV3 report on how a former Brazilian motorsport driver who had been injured in a racing car accident had transitioned into disability sport.

This report extensively covered the athlete’s surgical procedures and recovery while only briefly traversing his post-injury sporting career.

Language

The belittling language used in association with Paralympics coverage conveyed either heroic/overcoming or medical-based stereotypes of disabled athletes.

Heroic/overcoming terms used included references to disabled athletes ‘being inspirational’ when compared to non-disabled athletes. In a similar vein they were referred to as experiencing a ‘harder life than other athletes’ and as being ‘remarkable’ and ‘gutsy’. A former Paralympian was even quoted as saying that “if [non-disabled] people didn’t feel like going for a run, then they should watch the Paralympics and see what we have to put up with”. The medical model descriptor about a person with mobility impairment being ‘wheelchair bound’ found its way into Paralympics coverage as well.

Conclusion

This chapter has empirically analysed the New Zealand media’s treatment of disability-related stories published and aired during 2012. From the representative sample analysed, it seems that New Zealand’s print, radio and television media are covering disability issues more than they have done previously. Where our media have covered disability-related stories, they have, across all platforms, largely tended to represent disabled people as being in need of charity or as having overcome their impairments through supposed acts of superhuman strength or courage. Nevertheless, there appears to be an increasing amount of rights-based content being published or aired and this trend needs to be encouraged. On the other hand, this rights-based discourse continues to be largely pushed aside in our media through the broadcasting or publishing of content which encourages the public to take either pity on or adopt a largely false idea of what it is to live with disability issues.

All members of the media, irrespective of whether they are journalists, reporters, editors, producers, programme researchers, sub-editors, publication proprietors and (increasingly) bloggers, no doubt recognise the power that the media has to shape public opinion. In this age of modern mass and increasingly internet-based media, the 24/7 news cycle churns out news much more voluminously and faster than ever before. Within this context, it is recognised that media outlets have an enormous number of stories to select from on any given day, month or week and that newsworthiness and public interest are the main determinants driving what content makes it into print or onto the airwaves. This sometimes means that disability-related issues do not receive the primacy they otherwise should when this is warranted. In saying this, it is recognised that the same issues apply for stories related to Maori, Pasifika and other minority groupings. New Zealand’s media should prepare itself for more disability-related stories to make headlines, particularly as our population ages.

This chapter highlights how the media’s views on disability are shaped by, among other things, the absence of disabled people’s voices. Therefore, as disabled people we ask this question to the New Zealand media: where are our voices? When will they be heard more on the stories that concern us? Why not interview us as worthy subjects on disability-related stories, since we are the experts about how not only our impairments affect our lives but about the reality of what disability means within the social context! Our families/whanau and support people are important to seek comment from too but greater primacy, wherever possible, should be accorded to seeking out our perspectives as disabled people in the stories that emerge on issues about us, for they are our issues.

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