How disabled journalists navigate the industry

By: Aru Kaul

Content Warning: Mentions and discussions of (dis)ableism and its impacts

As journalists, the public relies on us to bring stories to them. The minute we step into a newsroom, we are making a commitment to deliver factual, timely and relevant information, regardless of whatever is going on in our personal lives. But how do you do this when the newsroom wasn’t designed for you?

Anything from a newsroom’s architectural design or its workplace environment can create barriers for disabled people. For example, in a 2021 article for Canadaland, reporter Bailey Martens said she couldn’t even fit in the door of her student newsroom. In addition to physical disabilities, a 2022 survey from the Canadian Journalism Forum on Trauma and Violence finds that Canadian journalists experience alarming amounts of anxiety and depression due to the fast paced and often traumatizing nature of the job.

As someone who was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as an adult, I spent a lot of my life not understanding what was wrong with me. Why were my intrusive thoughts, sleepless nights, irritability and lack of focus constantly getting in the way of things? Why couldn’t I just snap out of it?

These symptoms followed me when I began my journey as a journalism student at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in 2019. My first time interviewing a source was followed by a panic attack in the bathroom. Then, when I sat down to write the article, it took me three hours to write a single paragraph.

Even though these were not isolated incidents, I chalked this up to being nervous because I was starting a new school. At the very least, that was a problem with a relatively simple solution. When things didn’t change in my second year, I began to entertain the possibility that it was more than just nerves brought on by a new school.

But since there were no visible signs that I was struggling, I often felt that I shouldn’t ask for accommodations and just “push through.” I felt so much shame admitting that I needed help that I would never do anything other than search for answers on the internet. It comforted me to see posts on social media or read articles about other people going through the same thing.

And on the rare occasions when I did ask for help, they would often be accompanied with apologies or with more information than was needed when requesting a deadline extension. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Emily Fagan is an associate producer at CBC as well as a freelance journalist based in British Columbia. She too has yet to master confidently advocating for herself when she’s in need of more support or time than is offered by the industry.

“It’s hard to do when your disability isn’t obvious to others,” Fagan said.

Fagan has Crohn’s Disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that causes swelling of tissues in the digestive tract. This can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, malnutrition and weight loss.

“I typically don’t mention when I’m in pain or having issues with my Crohn’s to coworkers, out of fear that it might make me seem unreliable,” Fagan said.

According to the Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, chronic pain often occurs as part of chronic illness, which can be understood to be illnesses that do not go away by themselves within six months, that cannot reliably be cured, and that will not kill the patient any time soon.

“I’m privileged that I have the ability to mask my symptoms, but I also struggle with feeling like people will judge me, thinking I’m ‘not sick enough’ to take time off or ask for any accommodations,” Fagan said.

Disability and journalism

In Canada, job applicants do not have to disclose their disability at any point in the application process unless the disability directly impacts your ability to perform the job, according to the Canada Human Rights Act. However, does this actually mean that applicants are being treated fairly and equally?

For many disabled journalists in inaccessible newsrooms, it’s hard to steer clear of getting pigeon holed into disability reporting.

John Loepkky, a freelance journalist and editor from Saskatchewan, says many disabled journalists are typecast as op ed writers.

“Here, we’ll give you a bit of money to write about your trauma,” said Loepkky. “That traumatic experience that happened to you is worth $250 and not a penny more.”

As a wheelchair user, Loepkky said that disabled people don’t have the “privilege of being boring,” in an article for CBC. This means that they’re either painted as inspirational or heavily pitied for their disability. 

“This is how you end up with ledes like ‘John Loepkky who is confined to a wheelchair got out of bed this morning’,” Loepkky said.

Portraying disabled people as inspirational is called inspiration porn, which was coined by Australian disability advocate Stella Young. A good way to know if something is inspiration porn is by determining how it is supposed to make non disabled people feel. If the point of the message is to make non disabled people feel good about not having a disability, it’s inspiration porn.

A disability justice approach centers the priorities and approaches of those most historically excluded groups, such as women, people of colour, immigrants, and people who identify as LGBTQ+.

How to talk about disability

I remember being taught in school that we should not use the word “disabled” to describe a person and instead say things like “special needs” or “differently abled.” These euphemisms position disability as something bad and as a site of difference. Disabled people do not need to be ashamed of their identities. As disabled scholar Sami Schalk said, “disability is not a catastrophe to me, it is a part of life.”

Crip time is a term used to describe how disabled, sick, chronically ill and neurodivergent people experience time and space differently from non-disabled people. According to disability theorist Alison Kafer, “rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds.”

Lauren Munro, a disability studies professor at TMU said disability accommodation — whether it is in education or in employment — is oriented through a legislative framework. An example of this is the requirement to provide disability documentation.

“The current expectations around disability and accommodation puts the onus on that person to see a medical professional and obtain a note to excuse their absence. Getting that note takes time, energy and money,” Munro said.

“If you can’t get out of bed in the first place and/or you can’t afford the fee that your healthcare provider is charging for that note, you’re going to have trouble accessing accommodations,” she added.

I truly hope that I will live to see a world where accessibility is the norm. Globally, one billion people live with a disability, according to the WHO World Report on Disability. And according to Statistics Canada, nearly 22 per cent of Canadians are disabled. To put that into perspective, that’s one out of every seven people. There are so much more of us than people think, and we deserve a much better life than one spent in a constant state of struggle.

Even to this day, I still hear things like “You don’t look like you have anxiety” or “how do you have ADHD when you still get things done?” While I understand that the people who say this mean no harm, I can’t stress enough that anxiety and ADHD don’t have a look. Just because I’m not having panic attacks every second of every day or failing all of my classes does not mean my disabilities are any less real.