NCDJ resources for journalists & content creators

Disability Reporting 101

In this video, two experts remind you what reporters should do before, during and after interviewing someone with a disability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8R9J3wgG_A

How journalists can better cover disability

In this Columbia Journalism Review article, journalist and NCDJ board member Wendy Lu offers advice about how journalists can avoid so-called “inspiration porn.”

How to Report With Care on Disability

Journalist Amanda Morris, the first disability reporting fellow at The New York Times, shares her tips for reporting on disability in this article. 

Disability Equality in the Media

The NCDJ partnered with UNESCO to produce a practical manual and master class that provide hands-on advice to editorial teams on how to ensure fair coverage of disability.

Global Alliance for Disability in Media & Entertainment’s Best Practices for News Media

This is a comprehensive guide that links to many other guides related to language, reporting and more.

Reporting on Disability: A Checklist

This checklist, developed by the NCDJ, includes important questions for journalists to ask themselves as they write and report a story about disability.

Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute Resource Toolkit for Covering Disability

A toolkit for newsrooms to better serve the disability community that is a living document open for comments from the community. 

Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Guide to Investigating Disability Issues

This comprehensive guide includes some of the various definitions of disability, important resources and key issues for journalists to investigate. You’ll hear the voices of journalists from across the globe — many of whom are disabled themselves.

Investigating disability issues

This tip sheet by NCDJ board member Jennifer LaFleur explains important federal disability laws, along with methods reporters can use in investigative reporting. 

Resources for reporters writing about blindness and vision loss

This comprehensive guide from the American Foundation for the Blind includes helpful tips for interviewing and reporting about people who are blind.

I'm not your inspiration, thank you very much

In this TED talk, comedian, journalist and disability rights activist Stella Young breaks down society's habit of turning disabled people into “inspiration porn.”

4 key tips for reporting on and writing about people with disabilities

A project of Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center, The Journalist’s Resource talked with NCDJ experts for this helpful guide.

Disability Writing & Journalism Guidelines

The Center for Disability Rights, a nonprofit advocacy group, offers these tips for reporting on disability.

Journalism and Disability – A Guide

The University of Missouri has compiled numerous resources for its practical guide on how journalists should write about people with disabilities, as well as testimonies and examples of the work of journalists with disabilities.

10 Must-Read Resources for Journalists Covering Disabilities

Learn why language and intersectional reporting matter when reporting on disabilities in this guide from NBCU Academy.

Journalism Resource Guide on Behavioral Health 

Produced by The Carter Center, this comprehensive guide offers tips and suggestions for how to better cover issues related to mental and behavioral health. 

Tips for interviewing people with disabilities

The NCDJ compiled these suggestions to help journalists prepare for and interview people with disabilities.

Media Tips When Interviewing People with Disabilities

Easterseals put together these tips on interviewing people with disabilities.

How to create an inclusive and accessible interview setting

Tips related to accessible interviewing from the University of Vermont’s Center on Disability and Community Inclusion. 

Gallaudet University Tips for Reporters

This private university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing offers interview tips and etiquette when a sign language interpreter is present. 

When covering disability, avoid ableist tropes like the 'pity trap'

NPR journalists discuss language, and common tropes to avoid, when covering disability. 

Identity-first vs. person-first language is an important distinction

This Association of Health Care Journalists’ article dives into identity-first vs. person-first language. 

Words Matter: Reporting on Mental Health Conditions

This guide from the American Psychiatric Association includes specific suggestions about language related to mental health.

Guidelines for Writing About People With Disabilities

This factsheet by the ADA National Network provides guidelines for portraying individuals with disabilities in a respectful and balanced way by using language that is accurate, neutral and objective.

The call for plain language

A Q&A with University of Toledo disability studies professor Rebecca Monteleone.

ProPublica experiments with ultra-accessible plain language 

This Nieman Lab story delves into how ProPublica is experimenting with plain language — a type of text that uses common words, short sentences and clear structure to make information more accessible to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Plain Truth Project

The Plain Truth Project is a collaboration among journalists, researchers and self-advocates with intellectual and developmental disabilities aimed at making the news more inclusive.

Inclusive Language

This guide by Pratt Institute Libraries serves as a good overview of person-first and identity-first language.

Disability Writing & Journalism Guidelines

The Center for Disability Rights, a nonprofit advocacy group, offers these tips for reporting and writing about disability.

Covering disability in the media: Why language matters

Liz Ombati is a disability rights advocate based in Kenya who identifies as having a psychosocial disability. Here she explains why it’s time for the media to do more to accurately reflect the lived experience of people with disabilities.

Disability and inclusion language

A guide to writing about disability and inclusion from Sightsavers, an international nongovernmental organization that works with partners in developing countries to treat and prevent avoidable blindness, and promote equality for people with visual impairments and other disabilities.

The Disability Collection

Getty Images has compiled a collection of visuals that aims to more authentically portray individuals with disabilities.

Who decides how disability is represented in stock photography?

This article explores how to avoid stereotypical representations of disabled people in visuals. 

Authentic Portrayals of People with Disabilities Guide

GADIM, a disability in media initiative, partnered with the international stock photography company Shutterstock and the World Institute on Disability (WID) to create Shutterstock’s Authentic Portrayals of People with Disabilities Guide. 

Toolkit on the Go: Representing Disabilities in Film and Television

Prepared by Disabilities in Media & the Global Alliance for Disability in Media & Entertainment or GADIM, this toolkit offers suggestions for representing disabilities on screen. 

Toolkit for Inclusion & Accessibility: Changing the Narrative of Disability in Documentary Film

This Toolkit for Inclusion & Accessibility has been created by FWD-Doc with Little by Little Films, in association with Doc Society and supported by Netflix.

Access-ability: A practical handbook on accessible graphic design

A handbook developed by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario to help graphic designers think about how they can make their content more accessible to people with disabilities. 

Making News Websites Accessible to All

This Nieman Reports article looks at the steps some outlets have taken to make news more accessible to those with disabilities. 

National Center for Accessible Media

The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) is a national leader in making digital media accessible for people with disabilities.

How to make digital news more accessible for audiences with disabilities

This International Journalists' Network article looks at efforts to make digital news more accessible. 

Making the Web Accessible

A comprehensive collection of resources related to accessible content from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a nonprofit working with others to develop accessible web standards. 

Creating Accessible Social Media Content

The nonprofit Disability:IN offers specific tips for creating accessible social media content. 

Publishing accessible content

A list of tips and resources from the NCDJ. More tips on website accessibility are here.

Accessible Social Media

A comprehensive guide to thoughtful inclusion of people with disabilities in dissemination practices.

8 tips and best practices for accessible and disability friendly marketing content

A collection of tips from LikeMind Media.