A really important story that few in the news media are covering is the growing inaccessibility of the digital world for people who need closed captioning. With so much news and entertainment content now on the Internet in an online video format and problems with high definition TV carrying captions, many deaf and hearing impaired Americans are suddenly losing access to lots of content. An estimated 23 Americans are deaf or hearing impaired and need closed captioning to watch TV.

The Federal Communications Commission requires broadcast and cable content be captioned, but its rules don’t apply to Internet streaming or digital downloads. So it will be up to media corporations whether they caption online video. Here’s hoping that these corporations remember that a large segment of the audience needs captioning to enjoy their content. Also, captioning is not just used by deaf people, but many hearing people use captioning in loud environments and many non-English speaking viewers use captioning to learn the language.

One publication that has covered this issue is TV Week. Here’s the link to its story:

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2007/06/closed_captioning_excluded_dig.php.

For an ongoing blog about disability issues, visit www.patriciaEbauer.com. Patricia Bauer, who has worked for the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, started a blog in 2007 that compiles news and commentary from the media about disability-related issues. It has quite a bit of information about intellectual disabilities and Down syndrome. Bauer is the mother of a young adult with Down syndrome, who is also a leukemia survivor.

It is a wonderfully comprehensive blog, which collects news stories about disability issues from around the world.

About 500 disability rights activists protested at the American Medical Association meeting in Chicago Sept. 10, 2007. The disability rights group, ADAPT, organized the protest and it has an Action Report on the protest at: ADAPT Action Report
http://www.adapt.org/freeourpeople/aar/.

Other activists participated in the protest, too and have a blog with commentary on their goals for the protest at:  http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com/2007/09/disability-activists-make-housecall-at.html. This blog is from the activist group Not Dead Yet, which fights against assisted suicide. Not Dead Yet was founded in 1996 as a response to the acquittal of Jack Kevorkian, after he assisted in the suicides of two women with non-terminal disabilities.

This group should be on any journalist’s source list because Not Dead Yet provides an important voice for people with significant disabilities who are opposed to legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. Too often the media do stories on these topics and don’t call a source with this significant perspective.

Here’s a source:

Stephen Drake
Research Analyst
Not Dead Yet
7521 Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130
Phone: 708-209-1500

For sources from ADAPT on disability rights issues, it has a list of national and local contacts at: http://www.adapt.org/context.htm

Wheelchair sports appear to be finally getting their due. During The New York Times coverage of the U.S. Open in tennis, a picture of a wheelchair tennis player appeared next to the pictures of Venus Williams and other tennis stars. The Times also reported an in-depth story about the inaugural wheelchair competition at the U. S. Open. Eight men and eight women competed in the wheelchair tennis competition. (September 8, 2005, “Players in Wheelchairs Get Their Own Open,” by John Eligon, www.nytimes.com.)

I hope many others in the news media will begin covering local, regional and national disability sports and the Paralympics, which now occur immediately following the Olympics, www.paralympic.org. Studies show that the USA falls behind other countries when covering the Paralympics, meaning that U.S. reporters leave after the Olympics whereas reporters from many other countries stay to cover the Paralympians from their respective countries. Disabled athletes deserve equal news coverage to non-disabled athletes, in my opinion.

As you might remember, the diversity areas that I believe more journalists should focus on are disability issues. Recent articles in USA Today confirm how people with disabilities and their issues crop up in many significant news events.

In their story about the top 25 Lives of Indelible Impact, they mention a number of people with disabilities:

> Cancer survivor and Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

> Christopher and Dana Reeve and their work on behalf of people with spinal cord injuries.

> Ryan White, who brought awareness to AIDS when he was diagnosed as a 13-year-old.

> Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state. The court battle over her gave the nation an understanding of the importance of living wills.

> Michael J. Fox, who told the world about his Parkinson’s disease, and continues to bring awareness to issues such as stem cell research.

> Tennis great Arthur Ashe, who spoke out internationally on behalf of people with AIDS, which he also had.

> Mattie Stepanek, a boy with muscular dystrophy, who wrote five books of inspirational poetry before his death at age 13.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/top25-people.htm

USA Today also listed the top 25 headlines that have shaped history and several of them involved the disability community. For example, the injuries from the Iraq War are creating a continually growing group of disabled veterans, who may become the disability rights activists of the future like the Vietnam War disabled veterans before them. http://www.usatoday.com/news/top25-headlines.htm

The following article tells of a disturbing incident that could become all together too common as the debate over US immigration policy continues to boil. How can it possibly be pertinent to a police investigation whether the person reporting a crime has a green card? This is the kind of incident that requires little commentary, and plenty of outrage. “Photographer questioned about citizenship after reporting dead body” A freelance photographer who discovered a dead body in a Newark alley was questioned about his immigration status after reporting the murder to police. Authorities say Geraldo Carlos was taking photos of the garbage-strewn alley for a newspaper story about illegal dumping when something far more disturbing caught his eye: a woman’s body in a plastic bag. Go to this link for complete WABC story: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5663162