“There’s a lot of interest in disability among the audiences”
Issue Six
Hello, I’m Priti Salian, an independent journalist, researcher and media trainer based out of Bengaluru, a city in the south of India. Happy New Year, and welcome to the sixth edition of Reframing Disability, your fortnightly dispatch untangling disability-inclusive narratives.
In this issue, hear from Bhanupriya Rao about Behanbox’s series on disability, download the 2024 Disability Awareness Calendar, find a new free resource with stock images on disability, tips on making emojis accessible, and an opportunity for disabled people.
I hope your new year has kicked off well. I’m in Goa, attending the fantastic International Purple Fest, a convention of like-minded individuals working on disability inclusion across sectors. I promise to bring you some takeaways from this amazing fest in a future issue. Today, let me take you into the world of Bhanupriya Rao’s Behanbox.
“At Behanbox, no one is shown as an object of pity”
Bhanupriya Rao started Behanbox in July 2020 to do journalism with a gender lens. In 2021, Behanbox collaborated with the feminist disability-rights NGO, Rising Flame, to run a special series on women with disabilities, producing nine stories, one of which won the Laadli Media and Advertising Award for gender sensitivity in 2023. Rising Flame supported the fellows with a stipend, finding resources and interviewees, and training on disability reporting.
Bhanupriya spoke to me about the collaboration, the impact of the series and how Behanbox strives for less extractive journalism and more systemic change.
What kind of interest did Behanbox’s series on women with disabilities generate?
That series was one of our most-read series. Some of the stories, especially the one on women with disabilities and access to abortions [became quite popular]. There is a lot of interest in disability among the audiences, believe me. It's just that we are not giving people the right kind of, and adequate amount of information. When we do these thematic series we feel that only people interested in those themes will read about it. But our experience has shown that there's a wider audience for it.
People with disabilities [have always been] our audiences. For this series, because we had partnered with Rising Flame and they pushed the stories within their networks, we also reached a lot of advocates working for disability rights.
Can you recall any response to those stories?
Some trans persons got back and said that they felt ‘seen’ through our report on trans persons with disabilities and how the system completely ignored them. And it's not just the system, it is movements as well. I remember one person coming and telling our reporter that they were glad that we thought their issues were important and that we accurately represented them. One of the things we do at Behanbox as a value is that no one is shown as an object of pity. I don't want my readers to feel pity for persons with disabilities. I want readers to be angry and think about how the systems are so stacked against them. Persons with disabilities are also angry that this is not happening, and frustrated that no one's talking about it. I want readers to see the different ways in which people tell their story. The story is driven by a set of individuals, but we always come back to the larger systemic problems so our audiences can see that too.
If people with disabilities feel seen, accurately represented, and that we did justice to the story, they feel that there is a possibility for change, simply because the coverage started conversations.
In line with the organisation’s mission, what is it that Behanbox wants to do with disability reporting? What is your goal?
Like with any reporting we do, our main goal and the larger vision is for things to change, which is the purpose of any journalism. Publications might keep saying, our job is just to show you all the sides of the story, and nothing else is important. But the fact that you choose this story over another story is already a value-based choice you're making. So, I am very clear and categorical that when I choose to do reporting on disabilities, my larger goal is that systems change, they become more accessible, they become more empathetic, they value people as people.
When we look at any of our stories, we will be looking at it from a big pipeline that starts from people being aware. And not just people from the community, but those outside of the community also start to pay attention to it.
And once the conversations have started, we also look at how we can push these conversations within groups that have the power to actually take it up for advocacy. Same with disability rights. We’re not covering it as an event. We’re not making people heroes or victims. There's a danger in those and every newsroom should incorporate this kind of reporting as a natural process and not like a one off. These intersections should appear in every story.
Why did you collaborate with Rising Flame?
We partner with organizations because organizations come with a certain kind of expertise. They become more of a knowledge resource, and we take care of the editorial publication.
We look for partners that fall within the same value system as us, for example, take a rights-based approach in their work. And we value the knowledge and the networks they bring. Rising Flame was inputting a lot into the story ideas. We also did a three day training for the selected fellows on proper language, looking at the concepts and looking at where the data was available, and what are the different global concepts and the discourse. Rising Flame also put the reporters in touch with people for the stories that they were producing. They became our sensitivity checkers also.
So for us, we want to take this as an ongoing project. We want it to become part of our system that once a month at least we do a disability rights story, because if we don't do it who will? I think every newsroom should, but at least people like us definitely should.
How did you support the reporters while they were working on this series?
One of our reporters was working on an intimate partner violence story and she ended up feeling terrible. So as a newsroom, we said okay, if you're not feeling [up to it], take a pause. Don't overstretch yourself when you're just not in that frame of mind.
As an editor-in-chief, I feel like one of the things I've always encouraged [my reporters to do] is reaching out to me for anything. I say, come and tell me and we can work things out.
Even if they don't feel like writing an email, they can just drop a voice note or text. I keep the communication lines open all the time.
What is the impact small, independent media organisations in India can have on disability reporting?
Quite a lot, actually. Any disability rights reporting, whether in big or small newsrooms, has a potential impact, because the more we talk about it, the more the issues get highlighted. But I feel if leaders within smaller newsrooms see why this needs to be done, then there's quicker buy-in. Because of small teams, we are able to make very quick decisions.
Small newsrooms have that flexibility and agility, and we're also not afraid to collaborate, which is something a lot of big newsrooms won't do. We are not afraid to collaborate because we are not so brand-conscious, but want to reach more people.
Unveiling the 2024 Disability Awareness Calendar
Content creators, especially newsrooms, often produce stories on disability only around the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on 3rd December. But given their heterogeneity, disabilities should not be labelled as a single category. If each disability has a designated awareness day, week, or month, there is reason for it to be covered in the news as well. So here’s an annual 2024 calendar by a leading nonprofit for business disability inclusion, Disability:IN, which could help plan stories throughout the year. The calendar covers Wheelchair Day, Glaucoma Week, Limb Loss Awareness Month and many more important occasions.
Disability Inclusive Stock Photography
Disability:IN released another valuable resource recently. The organisation ran its “Changing the Image of Disability” campaign to increase representation and improve how disabled people and disability are portrayed in images. Using people with disabilities as models, 480 photos were shot to create stock images for a more authentic and realistic view of disability. The aim was to broaden the depiction of diverse disabilities, including non-apparent ones, and improve public, business, and media perceptions of disability.
Of those 480 stock images, Disability:IN has released a selection of 29 images licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. The photographs can be reused for any purpose, including commercially, in their original form, with due credits to Disability:IN.
Read the guidelines and download the images and image descriptions here.
Emoji accessibility? What’s that?
Do you have a favourite emoji you like to use a lot? A friend of mine often sends me a series of emojis on chats to demonstrate her happiness, excitement or affection for me. I don’t use a screen reader, but for someone who does, it might be a wee difficult to read a message which goes:
“😘 I love that 😍 and I’m so happy for you 🤩 🥳. Hugs🤗”
Screen readers describe every emoji because of the built-in alt-text. They may read the above message like this:
“Face blowing a kiss I love that smiling face with heart eyes and I’m so happy for you star-struck partying face. Hugs, smiling face with open hands.”
How confusing is that?
To reduce that confusion for screen reader users and people with vision impairment who don’t use an assistive device, below are a few tips:
Use emojis in moderation. One at the end of the sentence should be enough. It makes your post convenient to read for screen reader users. People with low vision who may have a problem distinguishing several emojis of the same colour and those with blurred vision who may find too many emojis disorienting will also appreciate it.
Avoid using emojis as bullet points.
If you use four emojis together instead of one, the screen reader will read them four times, such as “raised hand, raised hand, raised hand, raised hand.” Shouldn’t one be enough?
Don’t put an emoji in front of your social media name or it will be read before reading every post from you.
When it comes to a choice between emojis and emoticons, pick an emoji, because screen readers read emoticons as punctuation marks. For example, :) will be read as a colon and parenthesis.
Opportunity
For: writers, researchers, artists and narrators from the disability community in India
Deadline: 3rd February 2024
Indian NGO Rising Flame is “accepting pitches from writers, researchers, artists and narrators from the disability community in India for pieces addressing mental health challenges of people across disabilities and chronic illness.” Pitch away if you have an idea for a reported story, personal essay, analytical piece, comics or audio stories. Compensation is 10,000 INR per piece and guidelines are here.
Thanks for reading this issue of Reframing Disability. I look forward to your thoughts in the comments or as a reply to this email. What would you like to read more of? What should I include in future issues?
If you have taken a step towards accessibility, share it as #AccessibilityBrag and #ReframingDisability on socials. Tag me on LinkedIn and Twitter, and I’ll amplify your post.
Warmly,
Priti
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