Investigator’s Toolbox: Four starters
By Nakylah Carter, IRE & NICAR
Disability is often excluded from conversations about diversity, but there are many resources available to help journalists address this problem. Although not an exhaustive list, IRE has gathered the following four guides as a helpful starting point for improving your newsroom’s disability coverage.
As social norms rapidly change regarding appropriate language, it has become more difficult to decipher what is OK to say when discussing topics surrounding disabilities and how to refer to the disabled population in general. According to the National Center on Disability and Journalism, even the term “disability” is not universally accepted.
“Writing about disability can be a challenge,” said Kristin Gilger, the NCDJ’s former director, who led the center for 16 years at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “Language changes constantly, and there’s often disagreement about what terms or words are appropriate. The NCDJ’s Disability Language Style Guide can help journalists make accurate, informed choices.”
The guide was developed to address gaps in The Associated Press Stylebook and to give journalists an alternative to language guides developed by disability advocacy groups. The NCDJ guide attempts to be a neutral, accurate source of information and to give users context with which to make decisions.
Regularly updated and revised, the guide has more than 100 entries and is used around the world. It is available in English, Spanish, Italian, Persian and Romanian at ncdj.org. Portions also have been translated into Arabic.
The NCDJ also provides other resources, including tips for educators and journalists. In one of the available resources, NCDJ offers guidance for interviewing people with disabilities.
Hannah Wise created Disability Matters as a starting point for journalists and news organizations looking to improve coverage of disability and the accessibility of news products.
Wise launched the toolkit during her 2021-22 fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Disability Matters tackles how to accurately represent people with disabilities in coverage, and also explores various disability-related flashpoints for the media industry — such as the need for newsrooms to hire more disabled journalists.
“From typography and color choices, to video captions and alt-text, to the architecture of websites and news apps, conforming to accessibility standards benefits all readers,” she explains in her introduction to Disability Matters. “News organizations must be better educated to design products and experiences to reach this audience as well.”
The first half of the toolkit focuses on improving disability coverage generally, with discussion of disability history as context for journalists, how to build sources and how to eliminate “inspiration porn,” among other topics. The second half focuses on how to make journalism itself more accessible, touching upon alt text, ableism and editing for accessibility.
“It is impossible to encompass every possible question that a journalist may have, but this provides a foundation that I hope will help journalists become more comfortable with meeting the information needs of the more than 61 million Americans living with disabilities,” said Wise, who is now The Kansas City Star’s assistant managing editor for engagement and experimentation.
Disability Matters is a collaborative working document. The public can read and comment on the toolkit via Google Docs, linked at the author’s website: hannahmwise.com.
- UNESCO: Disability Equality in the Media
In 2024, UNESCO published a 102-page manual, “Disability Equality in the Media: Representation, Accessibility, Management,” with assistance from NCDJ at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
The manual is split into three main sections: 1. editorial content and equitable media programming, 2. making media content and operations accessible, and 3. inclusive management practices.
“Persons with disabilities are systematically excluded from media coverage or are portrayed in ways that reinforce stereotypes and negatively impact public perceptions,” said Agam Shah, a freelance journalist who led the effort in collaboration with NCDJ. “The manual establishes best practices for journalists to provide accurate, fair and inclusive coverage. A big part of creating respectful narratives includes using appropriate language and making accommodations for sources. Media organizations that foster an inclusive culture for journalists with disabilities are also at the forefront of equitable coverage.”
The Global Investigative Journalism Network’s “Guide to Investigating Disability Issues” offers a helpful guard against being ableist when conducting investigations, plus plenty of other tips and tricks for covering disability issues with an international perspective.
“People with disabilities deserve the same serious attention as any other group,” author Emyle Watkins wrote. “Watchdog journalism, in particular, has a critical role to play, as the issues needing investigation and accountability are extensive.”
The guide begins with a narrative introduction to its personal and professional significance for the author (Watkins is disabled and grew up with a disabled parent), before diving into five chapters featuring interviews with journalists from around the world: 1. understanding disability issues, 2. story topics, 3. sources and data, 4. language and interviewing, and 5. case studies featuring investigations from around the world.
Visit the IRE Resource Center to explore IRE’s archive of conference presentations, tipsheets, audio recordings, videos and more. Try searching for “disability” or other relevant key terms at ire.org/resources.