60 Minutes Came to the Bay Area, birthplace of the Independent Living movement — a largely unknown chapter of US civil rights history — for footage for a piece about the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
They filmed me, moving about the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC), where I work at Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), an ERC founding partner.
They filmed other members of the cross-disability community.
And they used that footage to undermine and dishonor the law that made me — a woman with a disability — a full citizen in 1990.
60 Minutes came to OUR house, used us, and told the world people with disabilities are either dupes, greedy, or both.
Top 5 Notes to Anderson Cooper Regarding His 60 Minutes Hit Piece That I Shot B-Roll For Once Upon a Time When It Was Going To Be About the ADA’s 25th
Segment also provides excellent instruction in “How to add insult to injury” by failing to caption its online streaming video
1. If an access violation is so obvious it can be found through Google’s aerial view, then, yeah, I expect a business owner to be able to find it.
2. If business owners say they aren’t serving any people with disabilities, get the other side of the story: Talk to local pwd in the area. Commit an act of inclusive journalism.
3. You know why I never used to ask for a pool lift? (Despite excellent legal reasoning that ought to render the issue moot.) Because I’ve been hardened by the indifference of business owners – the people who admit on national television they were breaking the law. I’ve had to use the ADA as a plaintiff just to get access to a hotel toilet. So spare me your pearl-clutching about litigation.
4. Thanks so much for using my body sans head to make a retrograde depiction of people with disabilities. You’ve made your editorial position abundantly clear: When it comes to our rights, the rule of law is a threat that must be neutralized. But who cares? We’re just a bunch of headless non-people.
5. How dare you use footage of me from the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC), a state-of-the-art example of built universal design, without any contextualization. I don’t appreciate being background scenery for your propaganda about “drive-by lawsuits.”
There were so many problems with that 60 minute story. But blaming people with disabilities? Really?
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I’m glad you wrote this. I use Google Street View all the time to scout potential access barriers. It’s been 26 years. How can access be new to some business owners?!
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Oh wow! That sucks. I’ve also been on the receiving end of pieces that attempted to be educational about the disability community but instead they went back to stereotyping and shoddy “journalism.” It’s hard when the industry standard (which I totally understand but still) is to not allow subjects to see the piece before it’s printed. 😦
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Reblogged this on Rambling Justice and commented:
By Ingrid Tischer, in reaction to the recent “hit piece” on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by 60 FoxNews Minutes.
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