Formulaic wheelchair athlete stories revealed

Ruth Harrigan of the Wheelie Catholic Blog wrote a wonderful piece about the numerous times she was interviewed during her years playing wheelchair tennis. She explains how every reporter came to interview her with what seemed like a formula for the story of "wheelchair athlete" and never asked questions about her life.


"My experiences with reporters who interviewed me about wheelchair tennis usually went something like this: they would ask questions such as how I wound up in a wheelchair and what my disability was. Then they would watch me play for a while, take a few pictures and leave. Nine out of ten times none of them asked me anything else. It was as if they were filling out a form entitled : inspirational wheelchair athlete article," she says.


Reporters actually stopped taking notes when told them she had a job and just played tennis as a weekend activity. "There was no way, it seemed, to get across the real story, which was that I played wheelchair tennis as a weekend warrior, competing at tournaments during the spring and summer for short two or three day trips, while working. The reporters didn't want to hear about my other life - the real job I had and all the other things I did with my life," she said.


I wish more people with disabilities would write about their experiences being interviewed by the news media. Reporters will only start getting it right when enough people tell them what they do wrong.


Thanks to the Abled Blog for pointing out Harrigan's article.