Category Archives: Disability Issues

I was interested to hear Alastair Thompson, proprietor of Scoop talking to Kim Hill on national radio at the weekend. He used the media releases of the Minister for Disability Issues as an example of material which is interesting to disabled people as a particular group but not to the mainstream media. It obviously stood out in his mind as one of the more under-covered media topics.

What he didn’t say is that disabled people are 20% of the population, but obviously not the important 20% in the eyes of the media. Those who want to communicate critically important information to the disability community know that media releases, no matter how well written or interesting, will sink like a stone in the mainstream media. If it doesn’t bleed it doesn’t lead. But at least the releases can be aired on scoop.

When you search for ‘disability’ there it all is. But what about the ‘spin?” The mainstream media has no spin on disability? Yeah right. At least on Scoop you know who is generating the information in the release so you can make your own informed judgement on their ‘spin’.

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Where does the time go? I have slipped up rather badly, with pressure of work etc.

The debate on National Radio NZ’s Media watch programme about whether television NZ should play charter programmes at more popular times has set me thinking about disability in the broadcast media, and disability media.

Attitude, the disability programme funded by NZ On Air screens at 9.30 on Sunday mornings when there is no advertising, and few viewers. If it were to screen at a more popular viewing time I shudder to think about what advertising would accompany it. The mind boggles at the thought of New Age crank cures, rest homes, or maybe the public service road safety ads about intersections with an spoke on the wheel reading disability – fate worse than death!

The only other programmes about disability on the box are usually “disease of the month” or thinly disguised freak shows. Even Shortland Street which in the past has starred Philip Patston as a hetero character who happened to be disabled, has blotted its copybook by featuring a mad bad and dangerous mentally ill man as a plot device, and we haven’t seen the resident bloke with Tourette syndrome, can’t remember his name, for a while.

Well now you know I watch Shortland Street! Seriously though, I have pretty much given up on the mainstream media to begin to cover our issues in any meaningful way on a regular basis. Even National Radio’s One in Five doesn’t hit the spot for me these days. It seems to be on an entirely different tack.

Nothing About Us without Us is pretty much lost on the mainstream media. I’m not sure that having so called “minority” NZ On Air funded programmes in more commercial time slots would make any difference. In fact it could be a backwards step with TV MZ possibly attempting to influence content. Keep reading the blogs I say!

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