Soapbox: The place to have your say

Failing us: The media's coverage of the war over 'disability'

Marie Claire Mcdonnell on the battle to find a legitimate voice for disabled people.

There is a war going on between various factions within the disabled and non-disabled community in the UK; a war that seems unique to the UK's culture of disability politics. And everyone is having their say: from Professors and Government Ministers to front-line demonstrators and internet artists.

What is at stake is who is the legitimate voice of disabled people. The content of the debate revolves around the voice, ownership, meaning and nature of various models of disability. Disability has for many centuries been seem as an individual problems - a medical model - but the development of a social model of disability in the 1960s displace the 'medical model' to interpret disability as a process of society and nothing whatsoever to do with the body of the individual. In addition, the pathological nature of any individual 'abnormality' was re-framed as 'impairment' by the social model.

At the heart of the war is the struggle for control of definitions and meanings, which in mud slinging personal abuse amounts to little short of a war. Leading voices, such as Professor Colin Low of the RNIB and the Disability Rights Commission, have been publicly proclaiming in recent weeks that disability rights have gone too far and is calling for an inclusive model of definitions which is closely linked to the medical model of disability. In response leading disability figures in the politicised disability movement, such as representatives of the British Council of Disabled People and the Disability Action Network, have responded that people such as Professor Colin Low are merely distorting the facts to suit their own needs and agendas.

The war of words and actions will go on for many years to come one suspects. What is interesting though is the opinion and news sections of the newspaper and television industry's complete avoidance of what is being said or happening within the closely knit world of Disability Politics. One suspects that this is as much to do with ignorance as it is anything else; but one thing that is also clear is that it has to do with self-interest.

The over-reaction of both Blunkett and Margaret Hodge (to shouts of 'Scab and Stooge') was surreal

The old guard proponents of the medical model of disability, which sees disability and impairment as a personal tragedy, are the large charities (RNIB, RNID, Scope, Leonard Cheshire Foundation and the like). The very same charities which spend tens of millions of pounds every years feeding news organisations with fully written stories, opinion and copy that fill the pages of all newspapers. The Guardian, for example, has over the past few years had a number of whole supplements written by Scope (formerly, in name only to many disabled analysts, the Spastics Society). In addition, charities are very keen to give awards to leading social welfare correspondents of the broadsheets for what is in reality a non-critical and ?supportive' coverage.

Let's take, for example, the non-coverage of the demonstrations by politicised disabled people last week at the offices of Leonard Cheshire Foundation (at Millbank, right next to Labour Party HQ) and at the Minister for Disabled People's annual reception for disability oragnisations at a top hotel in Kensington. Little, to no, coverage was seen of it at all. Yet if the reaction of the supposed next Home Secretary David Blunkett to the disabled activists trapping him in a Hotel ballroom has been seen publicly, it would have ended his current career yet alone his future one.

Mr Blunkett's emotional outbursts, shouting and shoving and pushing of wheelchair users out of the way was an indication of his inability to deal with his own impairment when confronted by disabled people totally at ease with who and what they are. The over-reaction of both Blunkett and Margaret Hodge (to shouts of 'Scab and Stooge') was a surreal moment of delight for the demonstrators and one of fear and anxiety for Blunkett and Hodge, which, if seen, would have undermined their careers dramatically.

The Leonard Cheshire Foundation provided similar evidence also of the media's inability to deal with an opinion which conflicts with its own interests both business wise and politically. Leonard Cheshire has been the key organisation in disability politics for the past forty years primarily because the politicised disability movement in the UK arose out of and in opposition to the very practices and existence of the Leonard Cheshire Foundation (namely 'Cheshire Homes').

I thought journalists were supposed to question and not merely feed us what they have been fed. Who's fooling who?

The Leonard Cheshire Foundation with its 'Enabled Awards' has been very successful at this, ensuring almost no critical comment of its activities; despite protest after protest and the web site www.leonard-cheshire.com. The domain name dispute was settled last week and the Leonard Cheshire Foundation won but the site is still up and will be until it is soon transferred to become subsumed into the glossy misrepresentation of ?enablement' that the Leonard Cheshire Foundation like to show itself as.

The now concluded domain name dispute over www.leonard-cheshire.com (and up-coming ones over the vastly more superior and amusing ironic-use of all variations of the domain name www.leonardcheshirefoundation.com/net/org/co.uk to link to anti-hunt, pro-gay and blasphemous porn sites) between the Charity and the individual Dr Paul Darke is again indicative of the limited awareness of the issues by newspaper journalists and editors.

Leonard Cheshire Foundation won the domain dispute as www.leonard-cheshire.com always knew they would (that was not the point). The site in question used alleged corruption by the Charity and the complicity of government ministers which are far more significant, in reality, than the facts which led to the resignation of Peter Mandelson this year. Yet no coverage of the site or its allegations has appeared in any of the supposedly 'quality' newspapers.

Equally, Leonard Cheshire is beginning to get a considerable amount of coverage of its campaign against charging. What is particularly interesting is not only why they are doing the campaign and why it is getting coverage at all. Disable people's organisations have been campaigning for months on the issue (i.e., the National Centre for Independent Living [NCIL]) with no coverage forthcoming from the media. Yet when the big charities appropriate the issues and the politics around it for their own purposed, which tend to be anti-competitive and anti-democratic, the media start taking notice.

Leonard Cheshire has only, when looked at critically, appropriated the campaign off of others who do not want them involved due to the implication of charging on its business expansion an development in the future. Charging will mean, in future, less people receiving less to zero care at home support due to means testing. This is the key area of expansion for Leonard Cheshire Foundation. Where has this been identified, let alone commented upon. It has not. Why? Because the stories that are being printed in the press in particular are being written either directly by Leonard Cheshire Foundation or fed to journalists who see no reason to question the questionable. I thought journalists were supposed to question and not merely feed us what they have been fed. Who's fooling who?

Disabled people have been treated badly by the press for many years and the continuing dependency of the media on charities is, to many disabled people, highly ironic and amusing. Newspapers like to think that it is the disabled who are the dependent group of charities. Disabled people have moved on.They just look on in amazement at the dependency of journalists on them now.

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