Yusuf Adua, an Investigative journalist and podcaster writes on the experiences of journalists with disabilities and how they can overcome their challenges in their media work.
Before you walk a mile or less in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world, you find a person with one disability or the other struggling to get by. What is the hope of some of these special people wishing to join the fourth estate? a call of duty that requires virtually all sense organs to uncover facts and set an agenda.
According to dataphyte.com in 2020, there are about 25 million disabled people in Nigeria, making up one out of eight Nigerians. Though most of them are into either alms begging or semi-skilled labour, any who wishes to launch a journalism career should not be discouraged.
Unlike in other professions, journalism requires almost all sense organs. Additionally, excelling in the sector involves how expertly a media practitioner can capture the uncaptured and tell the untold, which may require one’s mental, psychological, and, most importantly, physical abilities.
This reporter is a strabismus patient (not a real-time disability). It is a condition in which one eye is turned in a direction that is different from the other eye and involuntary squinting of the eyes. The goal of this report is to invigorate the ambition of these exceptional beings by pointing out ways to go about their reportage without peculiar help.
The metaphor of disability is inadequate.
According to Michelle Hackman, there is an unforeseen and strange bright side to being a journalist with a disability.
“Holding a cane can be disarming, helping you connect with a source in an unguarded moment,” the physically challenged Vox Journalist added.
She further disclosed that her disability tolerated relentlessness in how she goes with her reportage.
Will Butler, a blind journalist, acquiesces to her view. He said interviewees are “impressed with your abilities, so they want to give you more and make your job easier.”
Biodun Elugbaju, another visually impaired journalist disagrees. He didn’t subscribe to the notion that sources feel at home with journalists with disabilities in his discussion with this reporter.
“While I was still a young journalist, I was to interview a local government chairman. I put forward a question to him about what he had been doing in the area of infrastructure because I was conversant with the area. Still, he couldn’t offer any response,” the broadcast journalist with 15+ years of experience stated.
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Meanwhile, every media personality contacted contends that journalism is an extra motivation for professionals with disabilities. Maxim Miftakhov, a journalist from Chisinau, Moldova urged journalists with special needs not to look up to anyone.
“Journalism is a great motivator in itself. It even helps to overcome difficult moments in life,” he expressed.
WHEN THE GOING GETS THOUGH
Though a police officer had ridiculed Elugbaju at a public event, he said the only time a journalist with a disability shouldn’t do their job is when their safety is not guaranteed.
“This is not only for PWDs; it is for everybody,” he added, noting that journos have to be extra careful but should always be ready to set the agenda they desire.
Recently it was gruelling when Lagos-based journalist Victor Oteri sent a pre-action notice to Green Africa Airline for allegedly subjecting him to inhuman treatment and poor aviation industry practices.
The visually-challenged Assistant Director of Programmes Traffic Radio 96.1 FM asked for N22.5million as damages for “untold hardship and psychological depression” the airline allegedly made him go through.
At the time of compiling this report, it could not be ascertained if Mr Oteri has gotten justice or the case is still pending.
THE FEAR OF NOT GETTING EMPLOYED
The Charity Leonard Cheshire Disability says that fewer than 1% of those working in the media have a disability while a media platform in Nigeria told this reporter that it has no workers with special needs in her firm.
According to Rich McEachran’s article published on 22 November 2012, aspiring journalists with disabilities are between the lion’s den and the deep blue sea. The respondents think they had no answer to whether or not to disclose their disability in a covering letter with their Curriculum Vitae if they had the right image for the employer; and whether or not the disability would affect their ability, or perceived ability, to perform a task.
The description is a dicey task because it might put off potential employers who do not have provisions for journalists with special needs.
The trio of Tamara Marshall (partially deaf and aspiring fashion journalist), Hannah Morgan (a news reporter in a wheelchair), and Simon West (a blind sports Journalist) were very curious. Still, they believed that the best way to get a job as a journalist with a disability was to put in the extra shift.
PRACTICING AS A JOURNALIST WITH DISABILITIES
Gbenga Ogundare, a visually impaired veteran journalist, described practising with a disability to PUNCH in August 2018 as walking a child in the dark. To him, editors hardly give credence to PWDs and are scared to use scarce resources to cater for an employer with special needs.
Ogundare’s case is quite surreal because he was once abled. He said even contemporaries and colleagues abandoned him when it was apparent that he would lose his sight.
Dorinda Darkwa, a Liberian broadcast journalist who has difficulties walking, told this reporter that anchoring events, one of her best shots, is always a challenge.
“I try to push myself to be relevant so that my colleagues won’t pay much attention to my disability,” she explained.
The Fabric Radio media specialist always feels undone whenever media managers prefer her ‘abled’ colleagues to go on specific assignments, but she constantly pushes herself to measure up.
HOW TO MEASURE UP
Elizabeth Campbell, now a veteran reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, had been using the seducing strategy, and it had been productive over the years. She said she always coaxed editors into accommodating some of her unique needs.
While Lisa Goldstein, a deaf freelance journalist based in Pittsburgh, uses e-mail or chat programmes to conduct most of her interviews, Reid Davenport, a documentary filmmaker in California, is always on the lookout for the latest adaptive technology applicable to journalism. Reid has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair.
It is also vital that journalists with disabilities experiment occasionally. An Azerbaijan-based journalist, Amid Gasanguleev and Ogundare, shed more light on why experimentation is equally crucial as professional practice.
‘Disability will change one’s life completely. They both agreed it is safer for journos with disabilities to move ahead of their condition.
EDITORS’ PERSPECTIVE
Joke Kujenya, a journalists’ trainer and international investigator, believes journalism is an ability. Therefore, journalists with disabilities should see themselves as abled while performing their tasks.
The Executive Director, International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Dayo Aiyetan, said that the ICIR had consistently worked alongside journalists with disabilities to propagate its inclusiveness policy.
“We have a reporter living with disability working for us now, and just like others, he’s covering the upcoming elections,” the media coach added.
The Deputy Director of News and Current Affairs, Agidigbo FM Ibadan, Zainab Oyiza Sanni, noted that collaboration with colleagues would help fill the gap for journalists living with disabilities. She said that though certain editors have remained deliberate in underestimating them, it was high time victims pushed for all-inclusive organizational policies.
The head of the investigative desk said, “at Agidigbo FM’s newsroom, we are open to working with professionals with or without disabilities and address individual challenges that may arise by playing to the strength of reporters.”
Emmanuel Ikhenebome, the editor of Bendel Mirror, saw no reason not to employ journalists living with disabilities as long as they can uphold the ethos of the profession and can maintain ethical professional practice.
“I have always been a stout advocate of PWDs; my arms are open to working with you,” he stated.
THE GREEN GRASS ON THE OTHER SIDE
A Lagos-based radio host, Adenike Oyetunde Lawal, was made Senior Special Assistant on Persons Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) to the Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in 2021 in recognition of her diligent service of professional journalism.
Julius Shemang has been practising journalism for decades. He is a deaf Nigerian Journalist and Disability Rights Advocate from Kaduna state, Nigeria.
Kenyan Samuel Ekiru, a visually impaired football commentator, had received messages of commendation and solidarity from Peter Drury, a formidable voice from the Premier League, Champions League, and the World Cup football commentaries.
