What is it about disability that makes the media so uneasy? With rare exception, the media use the same shopworn stereotypes to portray people with disabilities - the pitiable cripple; the courageous and inspiring hero; the broken person who'd be better off dead, unless, of course, there's a cure just around the corner.
Why do the media continually use the same ill-fitting and inaccurate phrases such as "wheelchair-bound," "afflicted" and "special needs," that the disability community rejected long ago?
"Disability is still such a negative stereotype," said Bill Stothers, former editor and publisher of the disability magazine Mainstream and a 30-year veteran of newsrooms in Canada and the United States.