Chapter two: Interviews with media representatives
Introduction and methodology
A series of 12 interviews were conducted with New Zealand media representatives, as part of the media monitoring process. These media representatives came from the television, radio and print media.
The intention of interviewing these media representatives was to ascertain their attitudes towards disabled people and disability issues in the media. More specifically, the purpose was to explore what these media representatives understood about disability issues, and in particular, their knowledge (if any) of the various models of disability, namely, the medical, charitable, heroic/superhuman and rights-based approaches. The interviews also sought to provide an understanding of how the various media representatives (and by implication the wider media) approach disability issues.
These twelve interviews provide an insight into the thinking and processes that relate to disability issues, in the New Zealand media.
Participants
Occupationally, the 12 media representatives who provided feedback to the monitoring team, spanned the media spectrum and included a working journalist (1), the editor of a major Sunday newspaper (1), television chief reporter (1), community newspaper editors (2), the deputy editor of a major metropolitan daily newspaper (1), television producers (1), anonymous interviewee with experience of working on two programmes (1), the presenter of a major nationwide radio programme (1), the editorial policy manager of a major New Zealand radio broadcaster (1), the editorial development manager of a major New Zealand media conglomerate (1), and the television manager of a New Zealand broadcasting funding agency (1).7
- Note #7
- The number of interviewees exceeds the number of interviews due to one interview having been conducted with two participants. All other interviews featured or recorded one participant. Also for the purposes of ensuring the maximum anonymity of our respondents, the interviewees are grouped as follows: the journalist interviewee, newspaper editorial/editorial interviewees, editorial interviewees, radio industry interviewee, representative of a major media organisation, representative of a government agency.
- Return
A target of 12 interviews was set for the monitoring project team with three media representatives to be interviewed in each of the main metropolitan centres (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin). Four interviewers were tasked with conducting these interviews. An initial list of potential interviewees was drawn up and a form letter was sent to all prospective interviewees outlining the purposes of the monitoring project and extending an invitation to participate.
However, there were problems encountered from the outset in attracting participants. There were few, if any, issues in obtaining consents from Dunedin media representatives but in the Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch cases, each of the interviewers in these centres experienced a high rate of declines. With these obstacles in mind, the project team decided to abandon the proposal of having a geographical spread of media representatives. Therefore, the final geographical distribution of media representatives is Auckland (2), Wellington (6), Christchurch (1) and Dunedin (3).
The initial difficulty in acquiring interview subjects cannot be explained by any lack of effort on the part of the interviewers themselves. On the contrary, strenuous efforts were made to attract participants. The reasons for the high rate of prospective declines are hard to determine. Although it may be hazardous to speculate on the reasons, this could be due to the stressful, highly pressurised nature of the news business, affording little time for the people who either pursue or facilitate media interviews to be interviewed themselves. Attitudes towards disability could have played a part in this as demonstrated by the response of one metropolitan daily newspaper editor whose polite response to one interviewer was that the research topic “was not my cup of tea, I’m afraid!”
Despite the delay caused by the high number of initial declines, the team still met the interview target. The 12 interviews were conducted via telephone (5), email (5) and face-to-face (2). The interviews varied in length and duration and the length varied according to the subject’s understanding of and experience of working with disabled people during their time in the media.
Therefore, the more experience these media representatives had with disabled people, the longer and more in-depth the interview responses were, and vice-versa. A further factor to note is that the email interview responses tended to be shorter than those garnered in the telephone and face-to-face interviews, as most of the email responders did not answer all of the questions asked. The same applied to three of the Wellington-based telephone interviewees.
These interviews were conducted over a two-month period between April and June 2013. Some media representatives are acknowledged in this report by name while others opted to remain anonymous.
This interview analysis is themed around the 13 main interview questions which were developed by the Project Coordinator and Assistant Coordinator, with input from the New Zealand Convention Coalition Monitoring Group. As with any interview, primary questions were asked as well as a number of secondary follow-up clarification questions.
1. Do you have a policy on stories relating to people with disabilities?
This question elicited some of the briefest responses in the interviews conducted. Generally, the five media representatives who responded to this question answered that their organisations did not have any strictly prescribed policies relating to reporting on disabled people. However, some of the media organisations that interviewees worked for had general guidelines they worked to, particularly regarding language relating to disability. In this vein, a journalist went so far as to venture that in some of the media organisations that s/he had worked in:
Sometimes [it had been] in their style book to say that so and so who had a disability rather than a disabled person, but usually [there’s] not been an overarching policy.
A newspaper editorial interviewee made similar comments but pointed out that the publisher of their newspaper had a basic code of ethics, grounded in the tenets of journalism. One section of the code covers prejudice and how the company’s reporters should avoid writing copy which promotes prejudice. The editorial interviewee was the only person to make reference to the fact that their own and other publications in their newspaper’s media stable, have to adhere to the New Zealand Press Council’s set of principles (which are enforced through its complaints mechanism).
Along the same lines, another media representative stated that while their organisation took no specific “approach” to stories about disability, it still ensured that any stories broadcast about disability issues adhered to the standard journalistic rules relating to the need for “accuracy, fairness and balance”. Moreover, they made reference to the editorial policy guidelines of the company they work for which state:
We should avoid labelling people with their impairment or using negative language to describe disability. References such as ‘wheelchair bound’ and ‘invalid’ are examples of negative disability language. Terms such as ‘schizophrenic’ tend to label people as being, rather than having, a condition.
Similarly, two television producers stated that their programme had its own general guidelines on the reporting of disability issues:
Attitude is a documentary series that represents the issues and interests of people with a disability. Our first person narratives invite the viewer to take a walk in someone else's shoes, realising we have more in common than we have as differences (sic).
The reasons why news organisations, otherwise, took no specific approach to reporting on disability issues were explained by interviewees as essentially being due to, according to a television journalist, this not being “normal journalism practice”. A newspaper editor underscored this point and noted another specific reason:
I don’t know whether it makes me a dinosaur or avant-garde but once you start putting rules around a grouping, you start to ghettoise a news round.
From the answers above, it appears that many media organisations do not have specific policies regarding how they should report on disability issues but do have general guidelines on disability-related language. However, guidelines are only that: guidelines. Consequently, reporters as well as other media professionals have the ability to operate outside these guidelines in their reporting, thus, increasing the potential for negative reporting about disabled people and disability issues. This is the case as chapter one has demonstrated: how derogatory language still occurs in media reporting.
2. How would you describe the angle you look for in a story about people with disabilities? Does this differ from stories about other people?
The general consensus of the seven media representatives who answered this question was that they did not intentionally focus their disability-related stories on any impairment that a person might have per se. Therefore, in the minds of these people, they did not treat their stories about disabled people any differently from stories about non-disabled people. However, some of the media representatives then went onto contradict themselves in their responses by qualifying their statements. For example, a journalist hedged their views within the context of the heroic/superhuman theory of disability:
It depends. In my opinion they shouldn’t differ but you do find that quite often the stories you’re doing about people with disabilities focus not on the disability but on the problems they’ve had because of that or some achievements they’ve made regardless of that.
Similarly, a newspaper editorial interviewee stated that their publication did not specifically set out to do stories about disabled people either, but by the same token, they believed that:
Achievements [sometimes] become the focus of the story . . . [as] those achievements have come about despite the impairment [and that has what has made the achievement harder to get [for that person].
This same person also pointed out that gender or sexuality “would not come into a story [either] unless there was another pitch to it”.
Another newspaper editorial interviewee took a medical model approach to this question in that they believed that stories about disabled people were slanted in a way that sought to “educate [people] for example in respect to a medical condition which is not readily understood by the readership at large”. Another person with editorial experience stated that while the stories about disabled people published in their publications did not differ in any respect from those about non-disabled people, this media representative openly admitted that they could still come from “an overarching disability angle”.
Another interviewee associated with the radio industry took the more straightforward approach of having the story come first and that disability (where a person experienced impairment) “may or may not be part of the scenario”.
Another interviewee reduced the issue down to the most fundamental question that all media have to ask themselves in terms of whether any story makes it to publication:
...There is one basic question we ask our reporters. Why should 400,000 readers care about this story? That’s the start[ing] point for all stories: will our readership find the piece interesting?
A radio industry interviewee said that their programme covers:
A lot of disability-related issues, from differing perspectives, from the personal interest story, the inspiring and the uplifting, to public interest and human rights stories, as well as highlighting cases of bureaucratic (or political) failure…
On the contrary, the television producers contested the consensus that the media portray disability in an inclusive way as they argued that:
The media, in general, tends to focus more on the disability itself. Generally, people with disabilities do not make the news unless the issue relates directly to their disability and it is the disability that is usually the focus of the article.
Anecdotally speaking, the television producer’s scathing critique of media behaviour relating to disability is probably closer to the mark than many of the comments from the non-disabled media representatives interviewed. They also reflect many of the comments made by disabled participants at the consultation meetings discussed in chapter three below: about the lack of inclusiveness they perceived in media stories about disabled people.
3. What is your understanding of hot topics for people with disabilities today?
Six media representatives had only a vague idea of what the hot topics might be for people with disabilities. The journalist, through their work, knew about the struggles of disabled people to secure house alterations, transport or education. In a similar vein, a newspaper editorial interviewee said that their newspaper had covered transport issues, albeit, in the form of council-imposed mobility parking changes in their area. An interviewee from the radio industry identified employment and housing as significant issues for disabled people. Another newspaper editorial interviewee held that access to shows, theatres and mobility car parks were the disability issues that their paper had covered in recent times.
The television producers specifically identified education and the ongoing debate between the proponents of inclusive versus special (segregated) education as a key issue. They also identified the other key topics for them as being “the payment of family carers of disabled people [as well as] employment and accessibility in general”. They were also outraged by the lack of Paralympics coverage from mainstream broadcasters during 2012.
One of the more interesting responses to this question came from an editorial interviewee who pointed out the emphasis on post-Christchurch earthquakes coverage in their newspaper and how this consequently had changed the nature of the disability related stories they reported on:
I would say [that] these change according to the conditions. An issue in Christchurch currently is the difficulty some people have moving across a fractured and broken city. In the city rebuild, access issues are going to be important. After the earthquakes, there was some discussion about the use of New Zealand Sign Language to get the message across, and certain exponents found themselves at the centre of media attention.
The editorial interviewee’s response is notable in its acknowledgement of the wide breadth of the disability community and the diversity of their concerns. He also noted the raised awareness that the media and public had about New Zealand Sign Language following its extensive use in post-earthquake media briefings.
The media representatives who did comprehend the hot topics for disabled people identified the ongoing issues of access to employment, the physical environment and education as the general issues of concern for disabled people.
4. When you present a story about people with disabilities, what are you trying to convey?
The three interviewees who answered this question did so in the same way as they had the first question. In this sense, most media representatives stressed that they did not seek to emphasise a person’s impairment in their stories, especially if the story was not specifically disability related.
Conversely, many interviewees stated that if the story warranted it, they would emphasise the fact that their subject had a disability. A television reporter summed up the general sentiment of their fellow media representatives in the following way: “it all depends on the context” of the story.
A number of interviewees provided a more specific insight into how disability affects the context of stories. The journalist believed they had no reason to mention that a person had an impairment if the story was unrelated to disability issues. This interviewee cited the example of the trustee of a hospital-based charity whom she spoke to as the source for many stories about the trust he managed while serving as a health reporter. Accordingly, the journalist believed that as many of the stories “were about the things they [the trust] were giving out or the donations they were seeking” there was “no reason for me to mention ... that he was in a wheelchair”. A television reporter similarly recalled an instance where his channel covered a story about a Deaf puppeteer and how they did not emphasise the fact that she was Deaf. In the television reporter’s mind, “the disability had nothing to do with it. It was just there.” The only visual clue to the puppeteer’s impairment that viewers may have picked up on was that “there was a [sign language] interpreter there”.
By contrast, the two television producers stated that they examine disability stories by taking a “first person approach” thereby enabling the viewer to see the world from the perspective of the disabled person whose story they are covering. In so doing, they took more of a rights-based approach to their work:
Our stories tend to focus on the individual, and their disability plays a secondary role. If the story is designed to highlight an issue, it is still less about the disability and more about how the issue arises because of how society disables the individual.
Given the general nature of the responses to this question, it seems that some media personnel do have an awareness of how to inclusively portray disabled people, especially in stories which feature a disabled person but are not disability related at all.
5. Have you ever published a story concerning people with disabilities that you felt uncomfortable about? If so, why did it make you feel uncomfortable?
All bar three of the media representatives who answered this question stated that they had never published or aired a story they had felt uncomfortable with. The three interviewees who did answer this question respectively stated that they had borne witness to an “uncomfortable incident” involving a disabled person who was the subject of a story, been party to publishing an article that had incorrectly categorised a person’s impairment, or felt uncomfortable about being perceived as prejudiced against disabled people because of an opinion piece they had written.
The journalist recollected that the uncomfortable incident they witnessed had occurred while they were working in a newsroom. This involved a photojournalism student who had caused a wheelchair user to have an accident during a photo shoot:
There was [in the newsroom] a photographer - I think she was on work experience, and she kept asking a man to back, back in his wheelchair so she could get a better photo and it [the wheelchair] went over the kerb on the edge of the road and it ended up in him having to be taken to the hospital. The reporter took the man to the hospital and it was a really unfortunate situation [as] you don’t want to be hurting people.
An editorial interviewee described the background to the publication of an article in their community newspaper that had mistakenly categorised Asperger’s Syndrome as a mental illness. The interviewee detailed why this misconception had taken root with the reporter and the reaction to the article by the local Asperger’s community:
He said that this person had a disability. The person who was involved in the care of this person, it may have been his mother or his aunty, they also described it as a mental illness, which isn’t true, it’s not the case. There was a bunch of people helping people get into work and [they were explaining] the benefits of doing it. But the description of that person with Asperger’s undermined that message.One reference in a story of 400 words. . . .We had a number of calls from people in the Asperger’s community pulling us up on that story. The message got lost and the story was incorrect as it gave people the wrong impression of Asperger’s and rightly so. We [were] wrong and by [expletive deleted] you don’t have to be an expert to know it’s not a mental illness.
The interviewee admitted that they had spoken to the reporter, whom they usually regarded as “very conscientious” about their need to exercise greater care in more accurately describing people’s impairments in future stories. This interviewee also acknowledged that the reporter felt “pretty gutted” about the mistake afterwards. On a positive note, the very next week, the Asperger’s community’s demand for a correction and apology was accepted and made by the community newspaper concerned.
Another newspaper editorial interviewee stated that they had, while serving as a sports editor, written some pieces critical of the contention that the Paralympics received minimal coverage in the media. The interviewee explained why they did this:
I’ve written columns as a sports editor decrying how the Paralympics get so much coverage compared to other events that involve niche sections of the community. It’s a view that not everyone will share and is contrarian and controversial. I have been uncomfortable thinking that a disabled person might think me prejudiced; but I have pushed on, hoping to spark debate and see if others see any anomaly.
Among those who answered the question about whether they had published a story that had made them uncomfortable, it appears that those who answered were genuinely concerned more with misidentification of a person’s impairment or having witnessed an incident where a disabled person’s safety was compromised. The editorial interviewee who said that they had felt uncomfortable about potentially being perceived as prejudiced against disabled people, indicated that they were more uncomfortable about the way they would be viewed rather than about how disabled people or their supporters would feel.
6. What messages do you believe are conveyed to the listener/viewer/reader in stories focusing on people with disabilities from each of the following perspectives?
6a. Medical story where disability is characterized as an individual physical or psychological condition best understood through medicine or medical knowledge?
Each of these framework questions initially evoked puzzled responses from those participants who fully answered them. This was the case as barring the two television producers none of the media representatives had heard any of the disability-related terminology before, hence their confusion.
In terms of the medical model of disability, a wide range of responses to the question were recorded from the four people who answered. Some mounted a robust defence of the need to employ medical explanations to educate readers about disability. An editorial interviewee believed that medical-model based stories could serve to educate people about impairments and, in the process, act as a “reaching out [tool] to others who might be struggling with the same condition . . . telling people ‘you are not alone”. Another editorial interviewee shared this view in stating that if the newspaper they edited was doing a medically based story about someone with a disability that it more was due to their being “interesting because of the medical condition they may have”. One interviewee seemed genuinely confused by the question as they commented about it being “difficult to see why you’d be writing a story. Is it a rare condition?”
The journalistic interviewee took a slightly different tack in appearing to show some understanding that the nature of a person’s impairment does not solely define who they are as a person, and of the need for journalists to ask the disabled person themselves about the nature of their impairment:
If you said that the condition was best understood through medical knowledge, I think you wouldn’t be doing your job as a reporter because it’s a condition which affects a person so it can’t be best understood through medical knowledge because there’s the rest of the makeup of the person. And then if you’re looking at, say, the wider meaning of disability, if you’re looking at mental health, then the practitioners in that area openly admit that they don’t know everything about how the brain works and how people are affected. So I think if you’re taking just a medical view of disability, then you’re doing a disservice to the people with the disability in not doing your job properly. It’s actually better to talk to the person with the disability.
The television producers took a more contradictory approach to how they dealt with medical model based stories on disability. While admitting that they “challenged” themselves to help stop their disability related programme from completely venturing into the medicalised realm, they did see some place for covering medical stories. In this sense, they saw a place for medical stories, for example, relating to explanations of medical breakthroughs that might assist disabled people. They pointed to the series of programmes they produced for children’s television where they used what they termed a “comedy doctor (a teen with cerebral palsy or CP) who explained the science behind the difference in an easy to understand and fun way”. Besides, they also used a disabled child to communicate with their target audience in order to create a “come into my world and see I’m just like you kind of vibe”.
From the responses to this question, the media representatives interviewed justified the need for medical stories if they believed that this would serve an educative purpose but, at the same time, some recognised the dangers of excessively covering a person’s medical condition/impairment to the detriment of other factors about them.
6b. Heroic or superhuman story where individual resilience and an ability to overcome disability are emphasised?
Among the four media representatives who answered this question, most strongly defended the legitimate role, in their view, of publishing or broadcasting heroic or superhuman-based stories in relation to disabled people. Nearly all of those who answered believed that these stories provide a ‘human interest’ angle for their publications or programmes. One interviewee summed up the attitude of most of the media representatives in his statement that “people like to read stories about battlers”. A newspaper editorial interviewee even saw these stories as potentially empowering and deployed a non-disability related example to support their stance:
Same thing here with heroic or superhuman or individual resilience – sometimes that story can be kind of empowering for people if, I don’t know, if say I want to be a world class rapper, I would like to read about stories of people who have come from the ghettoes and who have made it big on the international stage. It’s the same thing with a person with a disability who has done something big as well, where the disability makes it even more remarkable as there’s a segment of the population that reads about this [and] is going to be empowered by that.
The journalist representative essentially shared the editorial interviewee’s sentiments but did place a caveat on this by saying that journalists should not place on a disabled person the fact that they may “have a difficulty or an obstacle when they don’t feel that way themselves”. In other words, journalists should not portray that a disabled person has always overcome their disability or achieved their feat despite having one. An interviewee from the radio industry mounted a stronger defence using the example of people who stutter or have communication impairments as examples:
I’m not sure about the value of people ‘overcoming’ so much. Sometimes it is necessary to overcome, say a stutter in order to give a speech, like in The King’s Speech. Other times it’s just part of a person and not relevant to why we’re interviewing them … but you know technology allows us to cut things like that out and it all depends on the situation whether we would or not.
The television producers argued that stories could promote the idea of disabled people being superhuman or heroic “depending on the way they were treated” but also outlined that on their programme “like it or not, many of our stories are uplifting and inspirational, etcetera, but not [essentially] because the person has a disability”.
The media representatives who answered this question justified their right to publish or broadcast stories representing disabled people as heroic or superhuman. They justified their argument by holding that the running of such stories was common as they did this with non-disabled people as well. Nevertheless, the media representatives questioned appeared to have no appreciation of the impact that these types of stories have on the public’s perception of disability issues and how, consequently, disabled people were treated by the public.
6c. Disability as charity where individuals with disabilities are portrayed as victims. Stories in this genre are often framed as ‘feel-good’ stories about charity work that is provided for programmes or events for people with disabilities?
Again, the four media representatives who answered this question defended the broadcast or publication of stories from within a charitable framework, albeit, while arguing that they never deliberately went out of their way to make victims of disabled people in the process. Consequently, some of these same interviewees acknowledged that the connection between disability and charity did have its potential downsides as well.
A newspaper editorial interviewee advanced the argument that “in the current funding environment, charities need exposure, and they need to raise awareness about themselves”. This interviewee had a medicalised take on the victim aspect in that they believed that disabled children were “victim to certain conditions” and “there is also a sense of victimhood when a person becomes disabled through accident or illness – the transition of one life to another”. The television reporter said that charities constantly approached the channel they worked for seeking publicity, especially around appeal weeks. Another newspaper editor reported charitable organisations in their area making similar approaches. A journalist, while personally seeing the usefulness of charitable stories in their work down the years still felt apprehensive in that they did not like to totally see “people portrayed as a disability (sic) and not as a person”. An interviewee from the radio industry said that while they tried not to traverse too far down this route there were still stories, in their view, “that make you cry”. At the same time, though, this interviewee would not seek to take “the sympathy angle necessarily...” and then added that there was, in their view, a difference between stories that were simply sad stories and those where the subject supposedly turned him or herself into a victim for purported charitable gain:
But sometimes people might get upset when you’re speaking to them and it might become part of your piece. I think there’s a difference between something being moving and someone saying ‘feel sorry for me.’
A journalist even argued that as a reporter they asked “… is it you that thinks they’re a victim rather than them and what’s the story?” This journalist contended that this could be the case with people with impairments where the:
Disability could be helped by medication which is not publicly funded or publicly subsidised and they are being denied access to the medication… then there is the kind of victim of the system approach [that some people use]. People with breast cancer could also argue that you can get treatment for people via lobbying in that way.
Having stated this, this journalist further admitted that this concept of disabled (or health-impaired) people deliberately turning themselves into victims was “a fraught area in a lot of ways and it relies on the knowledge, understanding and integrity of the reporter” to negotiate these kinds of potential conflicts. It appears that some journalists are of the view that disabled people can, on purpose, turn themselves into victims for charitable gain rather than, as is in most cases, be portrayed by the media as victims in the process of promoting charitable causes.
A newspaper editorial interviewee, though, differed from their other media colleagues in saying of the charitable model, “I don’t like that sort of approach, it minimises the reasons why many things are done”. Another editorial interviewee said that the media “… had to be careful about portraying people as victims or charity cases, as this is negative”. The strongest argument against the model came from two television producers who said:
Unfortunately, a lot of organisations that represent people with disabilities contribute to this through their advertising by imagining that we have to feel sorry for people to give money to help them live a normal life.
Above all, nearly all of the media representatives emphatically denied that they, at least, in the words of the television journalist “would [set out to] portray someone as a victim, at least knowingly” when covering stories about disability-related charitable activities. The word knowingly is the operative word here as reporters may not set out to do so in the first instance but, as many media professionals are non-disabled people, they would no doubt hold the same fears, prejudices and misconceptions about disability as the wider population does. Therefore, journalists may unconsciously transmit the idea that disabled people are worthy of charity to a population that already largely accepts this notion, thereby perpetuating this stereotype.
6d. The rights approach concerned with the social, political, and economic conditions that impact on disability. The individual story is placed in the larger structural conditions that impact or create disabling barriers for people with disabilities.
The five interviewees who answered this question had difficulty in understanding the rights-based concept of disability. However, those who did answer this question seemed to grasp its meaning after some further discussion with interviewers. An editorial interviewee, when discussing what the rights based approach meant to them, sensed that there were:
Issues that required a significant amount of fighting to be done from [within] the disabled community as many of the conditions that we [non-disabled people] take for granted don’t apply to the non-disabled community. That’s not to say that in a patronising way, but that’s how life is today…
In the view of another journalist, rights-based stories tended to reflect the:
Powerlessness of the person with the disability as they are in a situation where they can’t get what they need due to the economic, social, or whatever circumstances surrounding them.
An editorial interviewee stated that the media had a role to play in “facilitating public debate” about human rights. Furthermore, they observed “that human rights are obtained, rightly or wrongly” as a result of these discussions. In the same vein, another editorial interviewee believed that such stories were about “… righting wrongs.
If something is not right, and people get to know about it, then we can, potentially, force change”. The television reporter believed that, even when doing stories on rights-based issues, the principles of journalistic fairness and balance had to be observed. In this context, the reporter, when asked about the hypothetical example of his station being approached by a disability advocacy group to do a story on access into an inaccessible public building, replied that obtaining the viewpoints of both disabled people and the building owners involved would be paramount. In saying this, s/he as a reporter would still strive (as per journalistic practice) to ensure that the main angle of the story came from whatever had made the “disabled group ... [feel] unhappy about the issue” in the first place.
From a disability perspective, the television producers could not help but observe that the New Zealand media tended to treat disability rights as being separate from wider human rights issues and that is why for their programme its:
Stories will not be effective if they are framed as people with disabilities needing special rights above everyone else. We must emphasise that the rights people with disabilities are seeking are no more than what everyone else already enjoys.
From these answers, it appears that a minority of the media representatives have some grasp of what rights-based issues are for disabled people. Therefore, it can be deduced that the majority of the New Zealand media have not been exposed to rights based approaches due to not having any direct exposure to or direct interest in disability issues.
7. What messages are conveyed by stories about people with a condition or disability perceived as a risk to the public? Or where disclosure of or an emphasis on a person’s disability in relation to their involvement in an adverse event would be detrimental to them?
The five media representatives who answered this question did so mainly by referencing the situations faced by people with psychosocial (psychological or psychiatric) disabilities. The majority also acknowledged the widespread stereotyping and discrimination against this group, particularly when it came to the reporting of legal/criminal cases involving people with psychosocial disabilities.
The journalist, who has had considerable experience in covering mental health issues, was of the view that there is a considerable amount of prejudice exercised against people with schizophrenia. Furthermore, the journalist noted that this group of people with psychosocial disabilities got one of the “baddest raps” and subsequently were negatively labeled through “being called schizophrenics”. They described one instance where the chief reporter of a publication they had been working for rejected an idea from the journalist to do a story on the difficulties that people with addiction issues encountered in accessing the methadone programme. The chief reporter rejected their idea, saying “who cares about them [people with addiction issues] anyway?” This attitude offended the journalist and is an example of the negative attitudes held by sections of the media about people with psychiatric disabilities.
A newspaper editorial interviewee acknowledged that for some people with psychosocial disabilities it was their having come from countries where political violence was the norm that had caused them, in some instances, to engage in unprovoked attacks. This media representative pointed out that this had been an issue within their community in recent times due to its significant and growing refugee population.
Subsequently, the interviewee believed that discussing the deeper reasons why people with psychosocial disabilities may behave in the way they do was “… best discussed in the open, rather than hidden away and not talked about”.
At the same time they reflected on the stigmatisation facing people with psychosocial disabilities and the need for them to be seen as ordinary people:
… I hope we have moved beyond the time of assuming that people with particular disabilities have an inherent tendency to behave in certain ways. People are people first, their conditions are perhaps on a spectrum or a continuum which we might all occupy in certain ways, and understanding and treatment are better than they have been in the past.
However, the television reporter believed that stories about situations of risk involving people with psychosocial disabilities were best examined within the context of how they emerged. When further probed by the interviewer about the fact that people with psychiatric disabilities were statistically, on average, just as likely to commit violent crimes as any other member of the community, he admitted that he would seek to look at such statistics but only “… if that was relevant to the story. Yes, more if it was higher [than for the average population] if it was relevant [too]”. A newspaper editorial interviewee mounted a more solid defence of the need to carry such coverage in that while hoping that “not all sufferers are bad people” he believed, that “we should be pointing out a safety issue that has concerned someone, and ask how the gaps are going to be filled”.
The television producers summed up how people with psychosocial disabilities were portrayed and how they were, by contrast, positively portrayed on their television programme:
This is one of the most debilitating things the media can do because it can create fear of certain disabilities amongst the public. Our stories contribute to demystifying and destigmatising disability. For example, in mental health, the stories we do portray the individual – what they do and how they live their lives, not how their mental illness inhibits them. Again the viewer sees that the public have more in common with these people than we have differences.
With respect to this question, there appear to be some journalists who acknowledge that stories concerning people with psychosocial disability, and in particular, the minority who engage in criminal offending or risky behaviour, are being reported either inaccurately or with minimal background. Conversely, whether the increased recognition by some media of the role they play in stigmatising people with psychosocial disabilities is translating into more actual (and factually accurate) reporting about people with these disabilities is questionable, especially if the comments of the television producers are anything to go by.
8. Can you think of any recent stories relating to people with disabilities that fit into any of the latter categories (medical, heroic/superhuman, disability as charity, and rights based approach and people with conditions/disabilities recognised as a risk to the public)?
Only five out of the 12 media representatives could name stories that fitted the above-mentioned categories. The stories identified were predominantly a mixture of rights- and charitable-based stories, albeit, with one based on people with disabilities and health conditions recognised as a risk to the public and one heroic/superhuman story.
The journalist nominated a charity story they had done about two children with mobility impairments getting “stand-up” wheelchairs. Along the same lines, the television reporter commented that the station they worked for did “plenty of charity style ones”. In terms of stories that discussed rights-based approaches, an editorial interviewee recalled the story (as noted earlier in this chapter), that their community newspaper had placed on the front page, about their local council’s proposals to change mobility parking. In this case, the editorial interviewee acknowledged that they took a risk in dedicating his community newspaper’s front page to a story about mobility parking as for the average non-disabled reader he realised “that wouldn’t make your week, would it?” As also mentioned earlier, another editorial interviewee discussed the prominence of access issues in post-earthquake Christchurch and the use of NZSL interpreters at post-earthquake media briefings. A newspaper editorial interviewee named access issues around their area that they had covered including those relating to access to an airport shuttle, a pathology laboratory, and two stories on mobility scooter usage.
Regarding stories of a heroic/overcoming nature, the journalist recalled seeing a television item about a man who was ‘an amputee’ who had founded a motivational speaking business. The journalist outlined how he had a girlfriend and appeared to be doing well financially. In the journalists view, the motivational speaker appeared to be a “very happy, happy chappy!” Two interviewees also mentioned the Olympic and Paralympics success and then subsequent fall from grace (following murder allegations) of South African amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius. On stories relating to people with disabilities whose conditions are perceived as a risk to the public, an editorial interviewee again raised (in general terms) stories about people with mental health issues who engage in serious violent crime.
It can be deduced from the responses to this question that some rights-based reporting is being undertaken. On the other hand, though, it appears that journalists are being influenced by the traditional disabling attitudes of the wider society they live in and, even in some cases the work of their journalistic peers.
9. What do you know about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?
10. Do you know what a DPO is?
11. What do you know about Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs)? Can you name any in New Zealand?
12. How do you consult with people with disabilities or Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) about policy or individual programmes/issues?
These four questions are interrelated to one another and will be dealt with as one sub-grouping here.
In relation to the first question, only four media representatives had any specific knowledge of the Convention and, thus, could only explain its principles and content in general terms. Out of those interviewees who answered this question in the affirmative, the representative of a broadcasting funding agency said that “I am aware of the Convention and the emphasis it has on promoting and protecting the human rights and freedoms of people with disability”. A radio industry interviewee said that “it’s to enshrine the rights of people with disabilities as equal citizens, with equal access to information and services and human rights”. The television producers further elucidated that:
It [the Convention] and the New Zealand Disability Strategy underpin everything we do and how we should portray people with disabilities and the rights we should have, which are no more than what other people already enjoy.
The one interviewee who did profess to have some but, at the same time, not a great deal of knowledge about the Convention was a newspaper editorial interviewee. While working as a journalism tutor, the interviewee employed the Convention as “one of the examples I used to show [my students] that there is stuff about [human rights]”. Otherwise, this interviewee confessed to still not knowing enough about the Convention, at least not in a way that he could “… quote scripture and verse on it”. Otherwise, the standard responses of the three interviewees who answered the question in the negative could be summed up in that provided by another editorial interviewee who said: “Not much, I’m afraid. I will look it up”.
On the second question about knowing what a DPO is, seven respondents either had an accurate idea or came reasonably close to defining what this is. The remaining five either professed to not knowing what a DPO is or did not answer the question. Of the interviewees who knew about Disabled People’s Organisations, one said that they are “… an incorporated society or similar which advocates for and works on behalf of people with a particular disability”.
Another interviewee more accurately answered that a DPO “… was a lobby group that represents people with disabilities”.
A further interviewee said “yes” in terms of knowing what a DPO was but did not elaborate further. An editorial interviewee had no firm idea but correctly assumed “that it was groups that advocate for disabled people and groups whose primary membership is people with disabilities”. The journalist interviewee similarly answered that (using the example of the Disabled Persons Assembly) a DPO was “about people with disabilities doing it for themselves, being their own advocates, their own spokespeople”. Interestingly, the television producers stressed that they knew what DPOs are and then proceeded to name a series of disability service providers which are not Disabled People’s Organisations.
On the third question, most respondents who answered largely mixed up disability service providers and Disabled People’s Organisations in their answers. The DPOs that media representatives were able to correctly identify included the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand, Balance New Zealand, Deaf Aotearoa, Deafblind New Zealand, and Disabled Persons Assembly. Organisations that were inaccurately identified as Disabled People’s Organisations by interviewees included CCS Disability Action, IHC New Zealand and the National Federation for the Deaf (NFD).
Answers to the fourth question, regarding whether media representatives engaged in any ongoing consultation with disabled people and Disabled People’s Organisations, the answers were mixed. Therefore, out of the 12 interviewees, there was a split in terms of five interviewees who answered yes and four interviewees who answered no, while three did not provide any response. From the four who said no, only two respondents, a journalist and a television reporter proffered specific explanations about why they did not. The television reporter justified their stance on the basis that “… no, I don’t know I’d do that with any group for that matter”. When further pressed about whether this also meant that the channel they work for does not consult on media issues regarding, for example, Maori and Pasefika peoples with representatives from these groups, he said “no, not specifically within this channel, no”. A journalist said that in their role as a reporter they “very seldom...” got to consult with disabled people “… because this is a fast-turnaround once-over-lightly job [especially] when you are trying to carve up stories to fit into a bulletin which has three stories in it”.
Even briefer responses were elicited from those media representatives who answered yes. An editorial interviewee answered that he did and then stated that his main source for disability-related news was the disabled employee of a local non-DPO organisation. An interviewee in the radio industry said this was “ongoing” for the programme they produced. Similarly, an interviewee from a government agency stated that they engaged in dialogue with Disabled People’s Organisations and disabled people about broadcasting funding issues “several times a year”. Another editorial interviewee said that they did not know what a DPO was and then, upon re-looking at the question, estimated that he did so “perhaps 3-4 times a year”.
The fullest response came from the television producers who said:
Most of the time but not all of the time. We focus first on the individual with a disability, but sometimes depending on the issue, we might go to a professional or organisation for advice.
What these producers meant by the type of professional or organisation they would consult remained unclear. Otherwise, it would appear the media has minimal awareness of the functions and roles of DPOs and which organisations are actually Disabled People’s Organisations and which are not. Furthermore, their knowledge of the Convention appears to be minimal or non-existent, reflective perhaps of the lack of knowledge about the Convention that exists within the wider community as well. Hence, media organisations appear to have engaged in very few, if any, dealings with the organisations that directly represent the voice(s) of disabled people in New Zealand.
13. What, if anything, do you believe are the media’s responsibilities in reporting stories about people with disabilities? Do you feel you are sufficiently informed to do this?
This question evoked the fullest responses to any of the questions asked. The ten interviewees who answered did so in a positive vein with only one offering a negative response in regard to the need to improve the media’s responsibilities in reporting stories about people with impairments while another interviewee did not answer. Two of the positive responders made comments about, respectively, the need for greater disability responsiveness training and for more disabled people to work as journalists.
The one interviewee who provided a negative response was the television reporter who said, that for their channel, “the answer would be no” to the question and emphasised that this view was “not specific to any particular group though”.
Otherwise, the overwhelming number who gave a positive response reinforced that there was some need for the media to become more disability responsive, albeit, within the context of observing the traditional journalistic principles of fairness and balance in any disability stories they reported on. In fact, an editorial interviewee commented on the need to “be fair, accurate and balanced in all stories”. However, this same interviewee also admitted that “we may not be the most knowledgeable people on disabilities, but to write a story we have to find facts, and understand them, so the readers can”. Another editorial interviewee considered that, for their community newspaper, the reporting of disabled people and their issues to be as “important as anything else we do and probably a little bit more”. The journalist believed that they were an “unusual case” in the journalism profession given that they had been extensively “exposed to issues in the disability sector. So I would say that I was equipped to do it.” This journalist went further in saying that:
And I do think that the media has a responsibility to report about people with disabilities, their successes, their failures, or just have people with disabilities in normal everyday stories about things that are not about disability… because the media is supposed to reflect all sectors of society and you can’t just axe out some part of society.
The television producers echoed a similar sentiment:
The media’s responsibility is to accurately reflect the situation in a manner that avoids giving prominence to the disability. If the disability has no relevance to the story then it should have no prominence. In narrative or issue based documentary, there is room for editorialising. This editorialising is delivered by the individual. Our goal is to accurately portray the lived experience of the individual with a disability.
A radio industry interviewee said that they considered themselves not to be a “disability reporter (sic)” per se but one who “tries to be respectful and balanced in my approach. I am a reporter who works on a special interest programme. That doesn’t make me an expert.” Another editorial interviewee had some personal experience (albeit a temporary one) of living with impairment, due to a pinched sciatic nerve which had impaired their ability to walk.
Consequently this had been an “eye opener” for this interviewee, especially given that they had had to navigate physical access barriers between their company car and the office during the time of their impairment.
Four media representatives were specifically asked whether they had received any disability responsiveness training during their journalism studies. They all answered that to the best of their recollections they had not undergone any awareness or responsiveness training whatsoever. All four who answered this question had, however, received some training in how to cover Maori, Pasefika and, in one case, gay issues.
Otherwise, most responses on disability awareness seemed to reflect that of an editorial interviewee who held that “we need more education all the time”. And this deficit of disability awareness and responsiveness in the media could be rectified within at least one media organisation. In one response, the representative of a major New Zealand media organisation was very encouraging in this regard. This interviewee informed our Wellington-based interviewer that they were keen to read this analysis and, above all, ensure that disability responsiveness training is provided to all staff that work for this major media organisation. Furthermore, this person was adamant that the company they represented should employ a disabled person to deliver this training. The journalist interviewee, however, went even further in suggesting the need for more disabled people to enter journalism and the potential benefits that would bring to the profession:
I think it’s a pity… that there aren’t more people with disabilities in journalism. That would, depending on the disability, bring its own challenges but probably it tends to be when there’s more of something in journalism, it gets more coverage. And I don’t mean more unbalanced coverage, I mean better coverage than it would otherwise [receive] and deserving coverage too. It does bring its problems too in that you probably have to be able to drive a car and try and get to odd places and things, so I can see the problems involved.
In terms of moves at the time of writing to promote disabled people into journalism, the television producers confirmed that, in fact, the Attitude Awards have started a scholarship aimed at disabled people studying to enter the industry.
If the responses of media representatives to this question are anything to go by, the vast majority do recognise at least some responsibility to report on disability issues.
14. Can you recall an example of outstanding journalism on the subject of rights for people with disabilities, either by your own company or another one? If so, why did you think it was outstanding?
Four of the media representatives were able to name examples of outstanding journalism relating to the rights of disabled people.
The television producers outlined that their best work on disability rights had been a story they had done about disability community personality, Matt Frost. Attitude TV’s story about him had been positive due to the fact that it contained no voiceover or narration. In presenting the story this way, they enabled Frost to just talk “about what he wants for people with autism”. For the Attitude team, this story served as a “turning point” for the programme. The journalist interviewee related their experience in attending (while serving as a communications person for a government agency) a conference which featured an audiovisual presentation on older people in residential care. What impressed this journalist about the presentation were the photos portraying the positive relationships that developed between older people and the rest home workforce who supported them. Another respondent provided only a generic response about how their company’s publications continually highlighted access issues for disabled people. In this person’s view, these types of story were positive as they illuminated “where people have been disadvantaged and it’s good because you get the chance to highlight this inequity”.
An editorial interviewee nominated some “outstanding” columns written by the late Sir Paul Holmes which reflected the broadcaster’s support for the Paralympics. Holmes, this interviewee said, had “won opinion writer of the year based in part on that work”.
It is positive that some media representatives have encountered positive rights-based stories about disabled people and their issues. By the same token, it can be deduced that the majority of media representatives interviewed had no recollection of reading, hearing or viewing any positive journalism about disability rights, perhaps reflecting its large-scale absence from everyday media discourse.
Conclusion
The media representatives interviewed for this report seemed to generally demonstrate a confused attitude towards disability and disability issues. In this the interviewees are by no means alone. These attitudes about disability are held by the general population and the media merely reflect and, to a large extent, reinforce these.
With respect to disability, many of the media representatives interviewed do show some understanding of the need to run stories on disability rights issues and in fact do so. Many also recognise the need to avoid the stereotyping and/or negative labelling of disabled people in their work. Yet, a significant proportion of these same media representatives supported the publication or airing of stories which perpetuate the idea that disabled people are somehow heroic or superhuman or, alternatively, should be viewed as victims or as people to be feared. This may in fact be explained by the absence of more specific policies on reporting about disabled people and their issues within many media organisations. Often, the general guidelines that do exist (mostly centred on language) are just that –guidelines, which can be easily flouted.
Many of the media representatives also appear to have either minimal or no knowledge whatsoever of the Convention. Furthermore, they had a very limited idea of what a Disabled People’s Organisation is and neither do they appear to consult with them on a regular basis about the disability-related policies or stories run by their media organisations. On a more positive note, it is clear that a minority of media representatives recognise that their lack of disability responsiveness is due to their not receiving any responsiveness training before commencing work as journalists. Moreover, the fact that a significant corporate player in the New Zealand media market is prepared to show leadership in tackling this deficit of disability responsiveness in our media, will be welcomed by the country’s disability community.
If more media organisations follow this company’s lead, then both current and future media representatives will be able to write not only balanced, accurate and fair stories about disability issues, but avoid the attitudinal extremes that currently permeate media coverage relating to people with impairments.