OPERATOR Good day ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the reporting clearly and accurately about disability conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference you may press star and then 0 on your touch tone telephone. As a reminder this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ms. Robin Jones. Ms. Jones, you may begin. ROBIN JONES Welcome everyone to today's session and I am glad that you are able to join us and I know that the information we are going to be providing you today will be very valuable to you. This program is brought to you as part of a program known as ADA audio conference series which is a program of the ADA National Network which are information and technical assistance centers on the Americans with Disabilities Act. Our session today has been coordinated by Cornell University which hosts Northeast ADA center and the Great Lakes ADA Center located at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The individuals are participating in a variety of different ways. We have some people on the phone and we have some people who are on the webinar platform and some who may actually be doing both. So as you heard in my earlier comments, please feel free to enter your questions into the webinar chat area. If you are on the webinar platform and for those of you on the telephone, please hold your questions until we have the operator give you instructions on how to ask your questions and/or you can send them by e-mail at webinars@ADA-audio.org and we'll convey them to the speakers at that time. At this point, I'd like to introduce Hannah Rudstam from Cornell University, who is also affiliated with the Northeast ADA center and she will be our lead for today's session and introduce our other presenters. So Hannah, I am going to hand the microphone over to you at this time. HANNAH RUDSTAM Thank you so much Robin and thank you Robin for hosting us for this session and thank you for all of your efforts in helping us to plan this. And most of all thank all of you who are joining us today. I'd like to present my coauthors of this presentation as you can well guess, this was not something even, though you are hearing me speak, this was very much of a collaborative effort. We had many people involved in this. I'd like to thank Wendy Gower who is the Northeast ADA Director at Cornell University. Mary Catt, who is the Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing at Cornell's IOR School. Peter Quinn, who works at the Yang & Tan Employment Disability Institute as the multimedia specialist there. And Dot Marinaccio who works at ACCESS-VR in New York State and is the regional business relations coordinator. I want to particularly thank Dot for getting the idea for this session and fro kind of instigating this session. She really played a key role in both generating the idea for this program but also all along as we were developing the plan and reaching out to participants. I also want to thank Mary Catt for her great ideas and for really bringing that journalist's perspective to the work and of course Peter Quinn for also bringing that journalist perspective and also for being a panelist. So just a little background of how we kind of came upon this session and what our thoughts were. This session emerged from our experience with how disability is portrayed in the media. As you all know, words and images are powerful-they matter. They are often powerful in shaping the automatic assumptions that the public brings to these types of issues. And these automatic assumptions about disability are not-are we frequently notice are not only often wrong, they hurt people and they hurt people with disabilities. Journalists in the media professionals sometimes use language and assumptions about disability that are not only not quite legal, but also not accurate and sometimes not respectful. So we want to start an effort to give media professionals both some quick points what they can use in reporting about disability but we also wanted to start a conversation in the journalist community long term about the connection between let the language used to describe disabilities and the automatic assumptions about people with disabilities that this language can evoke. So on the next slide, you will see, hopefully, when we get the next slide-you will see our partners. Robin already mentioned the great role and sponsorship of the Great Lakes ADA Center, and also the Northeast ADA Center which is now part of the Yang and Tan Employment Disability Institute at Cornell University. I already mentioned ACCESS-VR and I will be mentioning soon John Robinson's great new business called Our Ability and we'll be talking more about that in just one second. On the next slide, we see an 800 number that you can call if you are a journalist and you have any questions about how to report about disability or if you have any questions about any aspect of the ADA or any aspect of disability. Here is an 800 toll free number where it's very likely just to remember what it was like call this number because it is very likely you are actually going to reach a living breathing person to talk about these issues-to talk about any expert about any of the issues that we will be talking about today. So just give us a call if you have any questions about these issues. On the next slide, we'll be showing that little bit later, you will be meeting our panelists for this presentation. For now I just like to have you quickly meet them. We have John Robinson, who is the president of Our Ability Inc. We have Allison Weiner Heinemann, who is a lecturer at the Department of Labor Relations, Law and History at ILR School at Cornell. And we have Peter Quinn who is a Multimedia Specialist at the Yang and Tan Disability Employment Institute at Cornell University. So a more of an elaborate introduction of our panelist's later, but for now I think we will dive in to our program. If we can have our next slide, here we see the-earlier I mentioned the two goals that we have with this session. Part 1 which is going to be about 30 minutes long reflects the first goal and what we want to do in part 1 is provide reporters with a quick set of guidelines to use on reporting about disability. Those of you who only want these quick points may have a jumping off point in about 30 minutes from now. If you feel like that's all you need and you don't want the deeper discussion of the panel but we really hope all of you will continue to be with us for part 2 as well. And part 2 will go in to a deeper and kind of a more spontaneous discussion of these issues with our panelists. They will discuss both their own experiences with these issues as well as what they see as emerging issues in how disability is reported in the media but throughout we really like your comments, your thoughts and your questions. We would like this as Robin mentioned to be an interactive session. So we will be taking a little break after both parts 1 and parts 2 to discuss your comments and questions. So as we go along as we said please enter your thoughts and questions into the question box and we-all of us will be discussing them at that time. So as we go to the next slide, we thought we'd start with a little overview. As you can see from the numbers on this slide, disability is one of the largest diversity population in our country today with nearly 57 million people and about 20% of the U.S. population. So what's also very important on this slide is the fact that disability is a growing diversity population in our country today for a variety of reasons. With better treatments and less shame, thankfully, more people with disabilities are now meaningfully able to participate in our communities, our businesses, our schools, our colleges and our workplace. The most prominent of the reasons for the growing number of people with disabilities in our country is the aging of our population. With the numbers of people with disabilities in our country, I think it's always been surprising to the extent to which the disability is often sort of relegated as this sort of forgotten aunt of diversity awareness and planning efforts. Too often diversity plans for our communities, our workplaces and other venues sort of treat disability as an afterthought. Another point that's also given on the slides: many disabilities are not obvious to others. In fact, the majority arguably, the majority of people with disabilities who have rights under the ADA have disabilities but are not obvious to others. So just a few points there. On the next slide we see here what we mean by the fact that automatic assumptions and attitudes around disabilities do hurt people with disabilities. So Robin if you could give us the next slide, here are-we have some basic statistics around employment roles for people with disabilities and if you want more information with this, on this, I urge you to look at the references that were given on the slide or just call our 800 number and we can give you more information on this. We see here that even with 25 years of ADA protection-the ADA was passed in 1990-we see that people with disabilities still do face significant discrimination, particularly in their economic and employment life. The employment rate for people with disability has been unfortunately largely unchanged since 1990. The percent of people with disabilities with employment remains about half that of people without disabilities as you see here by the statistics given on the slide. In 2013 the full time, full year employment rate for people with disabilities was 20.9% and for people without disabilities was 56.4%. Too often we assume that these statistics are because people with disabilities either can't or don't want to work. But this is most certainly not borne out by the evidence and again the evidence is given at the bottom of the slide, the citation. We see here that about 70% of people with disabilities do want to work and are actively striving to work. There is also significant evidence from other sources, DePaul University and DuPont studies that show what people with disabilities are given the opportunity to work, they do perform as well as those without disabilities and are as productive. These disappointing findings point to another fact clearly supported by the research that the biggest barrier of people with disabilities face is usually not the disability itself. They have learned to cope with the disability usually long ago; rather the biggest barrier people with disabilities face is often the attitudes of others and in particular the attitudes of employers. So on our next slide we will kind of shift gears here. If we could have the next slide. And we see here that while the previous slides gave a little quick background on the challenges faced by people with disabilities, we are now going to be providing you with a quick overview of the kind of five main things that media professionals need to know when reporting about people with disabilities. So let's start with these five. On the next slide the first of these what we are calling these nuts and bolts point, very basic points, has to do with words and language. Being journalists and media professionals I'm sure I don't have to remind you any of you folks in the audience that words do matter. So our first point has to do with using person-first language-what we call person-first language. Basically, person-first language means that we are using words that focus our attention, not primarily on the disability, but instead on the person. When we use words like "the disabled" or "the handicapped", we're focusing virtually all of our attention on the disability and the person behind the disability too often is eclipsed, is kind of conceptually lost when we use language that focuses instead on only the disability. So on the next slide we have some examples of phrases to avoid because they are disability-first instead of person-first. These phrases are not, you know, weird or strange, but are pretty much part of our-still part of our common parlance around disability. So as I read them ask yourselves what images and assumptions these phrases evoke for you. Here are the examples. "How do the disabled fare when traveling on airplanes?" "The paraplegic was forced to crawl up the stairs to the court house." "Epileptics now can do almost anything other people can do." "Many insane people have been forced to live on streets after deinstitutionalization." And finally, "how can museums help the blind to learn about their world?" So just think of what sort of image these phrases evoke for you. You may notice we didn't use the word "handicap" here but I would like to talk about that a little bit. The word "handicap" is a classic example of the power of language, but some linguists disagree. It's likely that the word handicap historically referred to the utter powerlessness of people with disabilities that emerged to describe people who had to live with their hand in their cap. Hence the word "handicapped" begging in the street. Because this word harkens back to a time of utter powerlessness for many people with disabilities, it is considered offensive in the disability community. So even though we still use the-we hear the word like "handicapped parking", it's better to replace the word "handicapped" with "accessible" as in using "accessible parking." So continuing to the next slide, we can see here by contrast what assumptions and images do these other phrases evoke, these alternative phrases. With just a simple change of phrase we are more likely to see the person instead of just the disability. Here's the examples given on the slide. "How do people with disabilities fare when traveling on an airplane?" "A man who uses a wheelchair was forced to crawl up the stairs to the courthouse." "People with seizure disorders can do almost anything other people can do, too." "People with psychiatric disability have been forced to live on the streets after deinstitutionalization." "How can museums help people with visual disabilities to learn about their world?" So even though if it is a little longer to say we like to use the phrase "person with a disability" or "individual with a disability" instead of the "disabled" or the "handicapped" and you can see that idea sort of carried through with the statements on this slide. So going on to the next slide, so building upon this first point, here we unpack some of the automatic assumptions that sort of follow the all too commonly used phrase "the disabled" or "the paraplegic" or "the blind." It is made all about the disability. It also implies that people with disabilities are all alike and sort of lumps them together under one category. That phrase often eclipses their talents, their likes, their dislikes, and their achievements. All of these things take a back seat to that disability status. So that's why we are trying to avoid disability first language and trying to use person first language. If we go on to the next slide, we see our second point in reporting about disability. Be careful to avoid the automatic assumption that the person is or sees herself as a victim. The very word "victim" brings up images of people who have been powerless and unable to control their lives. On the next slide, we are looking again at a few more commonly used phrases. You might see these phrases as headlines or something like that in journalism. Let's look at a few more commonly used phrases that focus on this victim mentality. "The man in question is confined to a wheelchair." "The teacher who was named in the suit suffers from epilepsy." "Two of the children in the family are cripples." "The doctor, who is herself a stroke victim, pledges to make life better for people like her" and finally, "When he communicate, he is bound to a wheelchair." So these phrases, apart from just being wrong on a moral level, these phrases are wrong on an accuracy level, too. They are just plain wrong. How do we know that someone who uses a wheelchair feels confined? Many people who use wheelchairs don't feel themselves to be confined. How do we know that someone who uses a computer or assistive device to communicate feels they are "bound to" or limited by this. Many people who use these devices could feel that they are actually better able to communicate than those who don't use the device. So be careful of phraseology of language that implies victimhood. All of these phrases make huge assumptions that are often inaccurate with about how the person experiences their disability; assumptions that can be wrong both on a morale and factual level. So if we go to the next slide, we see by comparison how do these phrases sound and sort of what kind of images do they conjure. We will see here in the phrases that I am about to read that these neutral phrases don't make the same sort of assumptions about how the person with a disability is experiencing their disability. "The man in question uses a wheelchair." "The teacher who was named in the suit has a seizure disorder." "Two of the children in the family use mobility devices." "The doctor who has a stroke-who has had a stroke herself, pledges to make life better for others who have had stroke" and finally, "He uses a computer when communicating." So we see here that these phrases are more both more neutral and more accurate. If we go to the next slide, we see here that there are just some phrases and some words that just generally should be avoided in all situations. Let's start with the word "normal" as opposed to "disabled" and we often hear that word in counter distinction to disabled. When we refer to people without disabilities as "normal," we are segregating people with disabilities as somehow being less than human, as being abnormal, as not deserving of being integrated with "normal" society. So that word is problematic for that reason. We already talked about the word handicap and how this harkens back historically to a time of utter powerlessness. The word "retarded" now called the "r word" has been dropped because of its loading of negativity and segregation. The term "intellectual disability" has replaced the word "retarded" in most cases. There was recently a campaign, you might have heard of it. It is called quote "R" word, "Spread the Word to End the Word" that has sought nationally to take this word out of our national shared vocabulary. And finally, in 2010 President Obama did sign a bill officially replacing the word "retarded" with "intellectual disability." So certainly journalists should follow suit. The word "insane" apart from lumping together people with emotional or psychiatric disability, this word has also taken on a hue of insult and dehumanization. Consider the fact that one third of us will at some point in our lives, have a diagnosis of psychiatric disability of some form. This term will hopefully start to fall out of our parlance. Lame and crippled are pretty obvious, they are two other words to avoid when talking about people with mobility disabilities and finally deaf and dumb has fallen in to disuse for obvious reasons. Clearly people with hearing impairments are not dumb. So even though most people know that dumb in this context doesn't refer to intellectual issues but refers to speaking issues, the word still evokes images that are insulting and inaccurate. So those are some words and phrases to avoid in all situations. Let's go on to the third point on the next slide, and this point has to do with understanding people with disabilities as people and not as objects of inspiration or sources of pity. The key points here for this third point is that people with disabilities should not be held to a higher moral standard. Some are brave and courageous and some are not just like the rest of people. And the key word here is object. When we assume that people with disabilities should be held up as some sort of source of inspiration that make others feel inspired or maybe make others feel thankful for what they have we are doing this at the expense of the humanity and full personhood of people with disabilities. Let's explore this a little bit more on the next slide. And I don't know if any of you are Disney fans but what we see here is the hunch back of Notre Dame as sort of being emblematic of the pity and heroism paradigm around disability. He is a character who embodies both sort of pitiful and tragic hero but we need to ask ourselves how many kids who watch that movie could tell you what I think his name was Kaszmoto. I hope I am getting this right. I can't remember his name, I'm blanking on his name. But how many could tell you what this character's interests and talents and opinions were. Where was the person? He was so stuck behind being an object of tragedy and object of pity that he was only a half human character. So we see here the cost of the pity and heroism paradigm for people with disabilities. On the next slide similarly if we go online we seen many images that automatically conjure the belief that people with disabilities are continually longing to escape their disability. Are constantly wishing they were someone different than who they are. This assumption again that just sort of depicted in the images that I am showing here is not only morally wrong but it is simply wrong. It is simply inaccurate. For many people with disabilities the disability is not something they are spending their lives wishing they could escape. But rather they just see the disability as one more part of who they are. They just see themselves as people who do things a little bit differently. They are not constantly living in a wish that they were someone or something different than who they are. So on the next slide we'll see what happens when you Google disability. You go in to Google images and you Google the word disability. Now I did this about three weeks ago. So it is probably changed since then but Robin if we could have the next slide. There we go. I think Googling images is a really interesting way to sort of take the pulse of how a particular phenomenon is viewed in our shared cultural space. So we see these things played out in this screen capture that I took about three weeks ago. You can try this yourself. It might have changed a little bit but we see here this sort of wish to be free, we see in some images like an anguish. We see a medical view of disability often and we also see here lots and lots of wheelchairs. We have the assumption that disability always means using a wheelchair or involves an obvious disability. As I mentioned before arguably the majority of people defined as having a disability under the ADA have disabilities that are not obvious to others. Such as mental illness or seizure disorder. So an interesting exercise to sort of understand how disability is not just a medical issue. It is a social construct. It is a concept that is constructed in the social realm and has a particular meaning. So getting away from just the medical conceptualization of disability and understanding disability as a social construct. If we go to the next slide, we see that this slide summarizes a subtle but powerful negative messages that are often implied by the turn of phrases, the language that we use to report on disability. The last statement on this slide is most important. The automatic-this automatic mindset about disability has cost people with disabilities in numerable jobs, opportunities, and independence. So these phrases and images are not just impolite but they have contributed to a situation where people with disabilities are all automatically seen as less than. And this is in turn cost people with disabilities, it has hurt them. So using correct and respectful terminology is not just about being nice. It has real impact on the lives of people with disabilities. So the subtle but powerful messages that are behind some of the words that we use to report about disabilities hold people with disabilities to a higher moral standard. They would - the disability eclipses the person. It is made all about the disability. It kind of assumes that people with disabilities are desperately wishing they were "normal" and it brings the idea that someone with a disability can do it anyone can. Probably all of you on the phone remember Jerry Lewis and the Jerry's kids program but not many of you remember what these kids really wanted in their lives. What were their talents, what were their interests, what were their strengths, what were their skills? All you probably saw while that was meant to be seen in that case was a disability. So moving on to the next slide, we go to our fourth point about disclosure, ask before you tell. So the fourth point has to do with the law. We previously talked mostly about the language and the respect issue around disability language but there are legal issues as well that reporters and journalists need to know about. The ADA gives people with disabilities certain rights around whether or not they wish to disclose their disability to others. So the most important point here for journalists and reporters is never assume that you know how someone with a disability wants the disability to be portrayed. Or even if at all. Is the person's disability relevant at all to the topic of the article? So be careful about not making assumptions. Always ask before you tell before you make a decision about how to portray a disability. The next slide talks about the finer points of disability disclosure for legal and human reasons never disclose a person with a disability without their permission. Ask the person you are interviewing or the person that is going to be reported about and how and whether they want the disability to be portrayed. Some people don't want it to be portrayed. Some really do want it to be portrayed and many are somewhere in between. And again, always consider the role of disability and the story is it really relevant to the story. And necessary to introduce it at all. So finally moving onto the next slide, we have point five, our final point has to do with a simple question: why is it surprising to others when people with disabilities succeed in their personal and professional lives. By treating this as a surprise, journalists implicitly question whether people with disabilities can be successful. That's sort of the underbelly of this statement. On the next slide, excuse me, we continue this and I'm a big Lucy fan. So I had to get a Lucy picture somewhere in this presentation. But we are asking the question here why is it so surprising when people with disabilities are successful. This issue is epitomized in a statement that I recently heard at a conference from a man who is a prominent lawyer working for the federal government. And a man who also happens to be blind. And he made the statement "I am a lawyer and I have an obvious disability." So many times I have had people be surprised by this and people going wow he is blind and he can think, too. Why is it - don't make it surprising that people with disabilities are successful. On the next slide, we hear-we see some other phrases that have fueled the automatic assumption that it's a surprise when people with disabilities are pretty much like anyone else. What's implicit behind these statements is that people with disabilities should be held to a lower standard in their educational lives and their career lives. The people with disabilities might need accommodations and might need to do some things a little differently sometimes, this is not the same as doing things less well or to a lesser standard. The lawyer we just met in the last slide using the accommodation of speech-to-text software as well as a few other assistive technologies. But he got the job done well and he got it done on time. His success should not be a surprise. So here are the statements that we typically kind of hear that illustrates this success of the surprise issue with disability. "Even though he has a disability he exercises three times a week". Despite being disabled he completed a college degree. Even though these people have disabilities they are working just like anybody else. She doesn't let her disability get her down. She shows up for school every day and completes her homework. Well shouldn't every other student? So why shouldn't a student with a disability. So those are our five points if I could have the next slide, I would like to draw your attention to a new fact sheet that we just had on the national ADA network. I urge you all to take a look at this. This just came out. It is a great fact sheet that sort of goes over many of the points that I just talked about here. It is called guidelines to writing about people with disabilities. I give you the link here. As you see it is also written in Spanish. So do have a look at that. We will give you the link for both of these. Okay. The next slide, and what we would like to do now is take a short break, this is the end of part 1. And we would like to take a short break here to see if we have any questions or thoughts or comments coming in from the chat room and coming in from listeners and we will all respond to these. Not just me. So Robin what do you hear in the chat box? ROBIN JONES Well, first of all, let's ask the operator to give instructions for individuals who might be on the phone who also would like to ask us questions today. So if you would go ahead and give those instructions at this time and those on the webinar platform if you would like to submit your questions please go ahead and do that at this time. Operator why don't you go ahead. OPERATOR Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star and then 1 on your touch tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue please press the pound key. One moment for questions. ROBIN JONES Great. We do have one question that came in that I'll go ahead, while we're going through the process here waiting for people to submit. So this person says that even though we continue to see more progressive mainstream media channels use the words like disabled or handicapped, other than learning experiences like this one, how can we be more effective in reaching media professionals to change how disability is used? If you have any thoughts on that? HANNAH RUDSTAM That's a great question. Thank you to whoever submitted that. I think that in the process of planning this webinar, all of my coauthors and panelists and myself really thought through this heavily how can we reach professional journalists who don't typically tap in to the reading of literature form but are in the disability community. So certainly webinars like this are one effort. But I do think we also need to reach out to journalist's professional organizations. And other venues where journalists tend to come together. I think we also need to reach out to journalist schools in universities and colleges with these types of issues. The journalists who are my coauthors would you guys like to weigh in on this? MARY CATT Sure Hannah. This is Mary Catt from Cornell. We would be eager to share the link with anyone who would like that for starters and I personally would be happy to answer any questions that I might be able to help out with because we-as you say we surely want to reach journalist. And we know how busy journalists are and other communicators so we appreciate the time that anyone has spent today and hopefully in the future we could be of service to you and as you saw in the beginning of the presentation today, there was an 800 or toll free number rather that you can call and reach a real live person in the ADA network nationally and they would probably be able to answer most if not all of your questions on terminology, etcetera, but please do use us as resources as well. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thanks so much Mary. PETER QUINN This is just Peter Quinn and I guess one thing just to add to that, especially since I just started at Cornell about eight months ago and coming from the background of being at the ABC and NBC affiliate in Bingham about an hour south of Syracuse New York. Especially on local channels, if you are seeing or hearing some of that wording that wouldn't be appropriate you can always write in to the station, whether it be an e-mail or even a phone call, I know, you know, my director would have taken calls like that. Some will. Some won't. But I don't think that anyone wants to unnecessarily offend people. And so that would be, you know, one thing to try. When it gets to be more of the national level you can try an e-mail or something like that. It is much more difficult to get through to, you know, the higher up you go in that case. But certainly more of the local levels. I know I had people whether it be-I don't know if I had necessarily disability related issues. But on other stories where someone thought that the wording was off or they would want something said in another way, I had people contact me and I was more than happy to listen because, you know, like I said you-you want to get everything accurate and things like that. HANNAH RUDSTAM Yeah. Great. Thanks Peter and I was-I really appreciate Peter that you brought out the fact that, you know, we don't want to say that journalists are mean spirited or ignorant or anything. The vast majority are not and they are perfectly fine people and intelligent people but that the subtlety of these languages is what is often the issue. That not everyone realizes the nuances of these languages. So I want to reiterate that point that we are not trying to say that journalists are intentionally hurtful or anything like that. So thanks for bringing that up. Robin should we take-do we have time for one more? ROBIN JONES Let's see if there is anybody on the telephone. Were there any questions from the telephone operator? OPERATOR Yes. And our first question comes from the line of Danita. Your line is open. CALLER Danita Apple White --, I am with-I am with White Apple Institute and we have a radio show entitled ask that (inaudible). This show is focused on helping people, especially veterans to change their perception of disabled to differently abled. And I am constantly confronted by many of my colleagues about the fact that are you trying to change the label of disabled again. I mean we tried to do that for years and I will have to come back at them and say if you just listen to the language again of what I'm trying to promote. It is changing the perception of disabled to differently abled. I know we can't change the label. We need the label for the categorization, medical insurance and whatever. Historically we have to use that disabled label but if we can change the perception of how people feel, not only the public and I think that's-if you will, just one of the things that I focus on that we are always talking about the public and how the public sees us and as a disabled person as a veteran myself there is-there is something about the way that I see myself, the perception of myself needed to be change in order for me to see myself as differently abled. Does that make sense? And I hope I am adding something to it. HANNAH RUDSTAM Yes, that makes great sense. Thank you so much and I didn't quite catch your name? Danita. CALLER It is Applewhite. HANNAH RUDSTAM Thank you. And I so much appreciate also that you brought up the veterans issue here, that this is certainly an issue for approximately one-third of veterans who are returning from their service, with a service acquired disability. This is a huge issue for veterans and I am so glad you brought this up as well so thank you for that. And your work sounds very, very interesting. Should we take one more question, Robin? MODERATOR We have a couple of comments here. Let me share those with you. HANNAH RUDSTAM Okay. ROBIN JONES One is asking about whether the tips are-that you included are in any kind of journalist handbook that could be used as a reference. Someone else had commented about having these things, you know, reaching out like to AP style book and editors and things of that nature, aware of any efforts or anything like that in that area. HANNAH RUDSTAM It is a wonderful idea. The main effort that I am aware of is the ADA-not the ADA, the writing guidelines about two slides ago that I just showed, that that particular brief is very, very good. But it is not-but I think that what this person is saying and what makes a lot of sense is efforts to communicate outside of the disability community on these issues and that's something that we really do need to do and this is right now spurring me on to think us five coauthors and perhaps others should get together and really try to write an article that would reach out to the journalism and media community. So those are very, very good points. MARY CATT This is Mary Catt at Cornell. I thought that was a great idea and thank you to whomever sent those e-mails in about contacting AP. I think we definitely should do that. I have looked in the AP style book many times and they don't have much about disability. So it would be great if they would be able to, you know, learn a little bit more and also in terms of getting the link to the writing guidelines, I believe it is possible to send a follow-up e-mail to all of our listeners today and we could- ROBIN JONES Yeah, it is in the handouts and those are all active handouts that they have and I just also put it back in to the webinar platform again in the question area. So the information is there. People just need to access it because everyone does have access to these handouts and those are active links in the handouts. MARY CATT Yeah, and it is the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So here is a story idea, everyone that's practically done if you are looking for a story or an editorial on-for the next year, this is a good hook to the 25th anniversary. HANNAH RUDSTAM Splendid. Great. Great. Wonderful. Well I see this is a great conversation and I think we have lot of wonderful ideas here and I really appreciate it. We will have another opportunity to have interaction with the audience at the end of the session. But I think it is looking like now it is probably time to move on to our panel. So we have with us a wonderful panel. I am really looking forward to their discussion and again this is kind of going to be a spontaneous discussion. But we have with us, John Robinson. John Robinson is a managing partner and CEO of R ability. R ability is a company owned and operated by people with disabilities to support people with disabilities. John spent 20 years in broadcast television working at various stations. He's also a motivational and inspirational speaker. In the past six years he has been to Italy and Australia discussing the obstacles that he has overcome. He can speak to many audiences about overcoming obstacles in life, businesses, or sales. He is a subject of a national documentary shown on PBS titled Get Off Your Knees the John Robinson Story and he has authored- coauthored, I'm sorry he's authored an autobiography called Get Off Your Knees a story of faith courage and determination. Published by Syracuse University press and he was named White House disability employment champion of change in 2014 and in 2015 his business called R Ability was recognized as small business excellence award as a small business of the year. So we are absolutely delighted to have John with us and we are also delighted to have Peter Quinn with us. Before I move on though, John you want to just say hello so people can know what you sound like. JOHN ROBINSON Hello. HANNAH RUDSTAM Okay great. We also have Peter Quinn who joined Cornell University's what's now called the Yang and Tang employment and disability institute as he said about eight months ago in January 2015 as a multimedia editor supporting web and video related projects and previously as he mentioned he worked for WIVT and WBGH news channel 34 in Binghamton in New York State where he served as an anchor reporter and videographer for the news department. So Peter you want to say hello real quick so people know your voice. PETER QUINN Hi. HANNAH RUDSTAM Okay. And I'm hoping we have Allison Weiner Heinemann with us at this point. She was going to be a little bit late because she had to teach a class but I believe she should be with us now. ALLISON WEINER HEINEMANN I am, yes HANNAH RUDSTAM Oh, hi Allison. Allison holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and she is a lecturer in the Department of Labor relations law and history at Cornell University School of Industrial Labor Relations or ILR and she teaches an introductory disability studies course as well as disability focused writing seminars in the disability studies sequence of ILR. Her research areas lie in disability studies pedagogy, disability law and disability culture. So we are so pleased to have these panel members with us for this spontaneous discussion. We will go in order of. John Robinson will go first with about a five minute or so opening statement. And we will have Allison giving an opening statement and then finally Peter giving us a five minute or so opening statement and then we will simply open it up to a discussion between panelists and then finally between panelists and the audience members. On the next slide if we could have the next slide. These are kind of the basic questions and issues panelists will touch upon. What are the major issues and challenges or dilemmas you see when disabilities are reported in media and what are some real life examples of this and what is the mindset or assumptions that give rise to these issues and what might need to happen to bring about change. So with that I am going to have the pleasure of turning this over to our three panelists and John you can start. JOHN ROBINSON Five minutes on the clock. Here we go. And thank you very much. It is great to be here. It is always nice to share stories and maybe more importantly answer questions because it is my personal belief the way we learn is to ask and answer questions with compassion and love and kindness but that is how you learn. And, you know, we all want to live in a better place. It is funny right now we at R ability, we mentor people with disabilities towards employment and we are going to be creating a large network towards employment around the state very soon and announce that but for the past three to four years in some of the towns across the state we are very well-known as being two individuals with disabilities who are hand cycling across the state along the Erie canal path. And we are proud to do it. It's a great way to raise awareness and we enjoy it very much. But it is opened our eyes to how the media and I being a former person of the media, can look at us. As mentioned in my bio I worked for 15 plus years in broadcast television and know the media very well but once you are on the other end of the camera then other people are deciding how they write about you. And me as a quadruple congenital amputee I have to-I personally have to think about it and be careful. I don't worry too much about what people have to say. I have watched it happen. I am a congenital amputee. I am an individual with a disability and I am proud of that and I enjoy it and I like it very much. But at times I'm other things in the media. When we took off from Buffalo this past year leaving for a hand cycle trip there was an article written about us, a very large newspaper, and the head line was disabled bicyclists take off on state wide trip and that's how it began. Disabled bicyclists and then in the lead it's two disabled bicyclists. And then it's John Robinson who was born with stumps for arms. Well, I have arms. They are amputated at the elbow. But they are not stumps. They are not tree stumps. So that I don't necessarily need. And my partner Doug Hamlin is a quadriplegic since 1983. Doug and I have enjoyed on this bike trip specifically enjoyed calling each other those words and me being stumpy and Doug was having the mistress's name was quadriplegia and my wife Andrea and Doug's wife Pam also got in to it a little bit but you realize that you are labeled based on what people read and write. And while we had fun with it, the truth of the matter is that people in western New York that read that and think that I have stumps for arms and think that the only way to describe Doug is quadriplegic and that's not right and we have to be cognizant of that and aware of that. It is also very humbling being the public individual and being dependent upon what is written about you. Presently what's going on in the Syracuse area they are paving a section of the canal and we have been proponents of the canal to create accessibility for other people with disabilities and we are very passionate about it. And it has been interesting to watch the comments on the opinion page really yelling at us, calling us names, because we are standing up for something. And it is very easy for people to do that behind an alias. Behind a hidden profile. And you watch what the general public really think. And so you realize that comes from in some part from how the media portrays you. So we-we have, those are two very real life examples and you can look them up online and hopefully I am portraying them fairly but we have to be aware of what the mind sets are. We at R Ability is to have people growing individuals with disabilities we have to be aware that people are watching us and we need to start talking about how we can change that. The best way to change things is by explaining exactly who I am, I am a quadruple congenital amputee born without the extension of my arms and legs. Doug is an individual with a disability, individual with-who has quadriplegia who broke his neck on a trampoline accident 27 years ago. It doesn't mean-Doug also owned and sold a business. And has been married for 30 years. So let's-this is who we are. We are not defined by our disability. But we certainly, you know, are people with disabilities and as part of themselves and that's okay. That is my five minutes. HANNAH RUDSTAM Thank you, John. JOHN ROBINSON I will leave it there for questions later. HANNAH RUDSTAM Okay. Thank you. That was some really wonderful examples of real life issues and I really appreciate your candor and your willingness to share those with us from somebody who is a person who has worked in the media. So thanks for those wonderful insights. Now we have Allison, would you like to get us started Allison? ALLISON WEINER HEINEMANN Sure and I hope I will very much keep to the five minutes but I can definitely save some for further discussion. So thank you, I just want to reiterate John's words of thanks for the invitation to participate today. I want to speak from the perspective of a disability scholar, an educator and disability scholar. And as much as I find the area of media representation to be incredibly crucial because as I convey to my students we can make important gains in law and policy which they learn about but until we see changes in social attitudes which media informs and is informed by we don't truly start to combat discrimination against people with disabilities. I wanted to touch upon the role and importance of social media. I myself am an avid social media user as many of us are and in fact, recent estimates this year identify that about 45% of the world's population are active Internet users. And when it comes to social media and disability, you know, there is a bit of a double edge sword. On the one hand you have the problem of social media, in both reflecting and generating the kinds of damaging stereotypes that you went over in the first part of the webinar. Not to mention the very issue of social media is accessibility or inaccessibility. But with also really noteworthy about social media is that it has the potential to transform what constitutes news. So what we think is news worthy in the first place or who gets to define what is news worthy. And so I wanted to just highlight briefly as examples I was struck by and I-I was struck that my students were struck by this because there were two trending stories on Facebook. This was this past May. So it is not very long ago. And it is really interesting to see what-which kinds of stories, you know, trend on these kinds of social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. So what becomes designated as viral and why, and what impact this has on really informing social perceptions of whatever the material is on and in this case disability and there were two really striking examples at the same time. So on the one hand there was a story about an individual a customer with a disability who frequented a fast food chain called Qdoba. It offers Mexican style food. If you Google Qdoba on disability the story will come up. The customer likes to frequent the restaurant and apparently needs assistance in entering the establishment. She apparently takes paratransit to get there, assistance with getting through the line, and a particular employee has recently helped her and apparently she has also requested assistance from this employee in helping her to eat. S on one occasion another customer at the Qdoba witnessed this and actually videotaped it and sent this to his friends, who one of which sent it to the local news syndicate and from there it actually made national headlines and if you Google this you can find pieces from USA Today and CNN and then it became a trending story from there on outlets like Facebook and Twitter. Which is where I first came across it. I think the story is troubling for a few reasons. First it begs the question of why this is making national headlines, why is it news worthy about a person who happens to have a disability and who often needs assistance with tasks like feeding herself and enjoys eating at a fast food establishment. And you ask what could make headlines is the fact that the restaurant is so physically inaccessible to this customer. As we discovered in one of the pieces that she actually has to wait outside a parking lot until someone notices her and brings her in. Or that she has to rely on a restaurant employee to assist her with eating because there is a dearth of quality affordable attendants who can make independent living a reality for people with disabilities. But that's not what is making the headlines. It is a story about a person who is in need of pity. A person who is in need of charity and going to the extent where the person who is assisting her is an inspirational hero. And I certainly don't mean to knock his actions. But this is very much the rhetoric. That is coding this kind of story. And as one of the headlines reads "Qdoba employee feeds customer with a disability reminds us all to help someone today. And the other story, especially problematic because this was trending at the same time so was about a nursing student at Misericordia University in Pennsylvania. You can also Google this. Misericordia and nursing student who is suing the institution for failing to appropriately accommodate her as the law requires. Her anxiety depression and functional limitations in concentrating during a final exam and this was a mainstream news piece. . It was run by outlets like the Washington Post and relatively objectively but then for some reason it became a viral story that got shared and reposted and shared. And what was really striking was a lot of commentary really discriminatory animus. You know she can't hack it, she's not qualified, and accommodations are bogus anyway, this kind of language and what's really striking you is got these examples that are trending at the same time. So people are actually finding these news stories about disability intriguing enough to be sharing them and writing about them. But its either to build an image of person with a disability is in need of pity. Or a person who is to be qualified and made suspect because she needs an accommodation. So I think that that was really striking but at the same time social media can also offer a platform for really educating for debunking some of these problematic stereotypes. Many people who were sharing the Misericordia nursing student story were vilifying her. There many who were speaking out saying that we need a greater awareness of what accommodations mean, we need a greater awareness of what happens when institutions like this fail to accommodate students as the law requires and should be going beyond just mere compliance to and disability scholars have talked about how social media can be a real platform for activism and advocacy too. There have been noteworthy examples, especially in the UK in protesting some of the austerity cuts. And so launching Twitter accounts, campaigns and they have gone viral and actually have made a huge difference. So I'm struck by that kind of double edge sword of media. Specifically when we look at social media. You know on the one hand it really reifies these kinds of stereotypes but on the other hand we do have a possible platform to challenge them. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thank you so much Allison. Really interesting. I think what you said really kind of echoed what we had said earlier in the presentation about the sort of-this twin parallel trends of pity on the one hand and vilification on the other and thank you so much for bringing in the elements of social media that really brings in a new wrinkle in the discussion. So thank you so much. Peter, Peter. PETER QUINN Yeah, I'm here. And just a few points I guess I really like what both John and Allison had to say and I guess just a few points from my perspective especially with just recently coming out of, you know, the news media field one of the things that I would observe for-whether it be reporters who would be listening today or perhaps people with different organizations or agencies that work with people who have disabilities is that when I was out in the field a lot of times, you know, a certain percentage of our stories had to do with disability, not a large percent but certainly some and especially if I was around other reporters and they came across someone perhaps who is using a wheelchair or whatever the disability is, essentially if it was very visible. So obviously would not really be sure how to act or do you help someone out or what do you say or all of a sudden it was a mental block that went up that was like oh, they are different than me. And I think the one thing that I learned over the years there and then that's really been re-enforced working with the Northeast ADA center is that people are really just people. Some people maybe someone has a disability or a different ability. Someone perhaps, you know, doesn't but it really is people are just people. And people do want to share stories. If they are willing to talk, then they are not really necessarily concerned with, you know, if they are going to be seen in a wheelchair or something like that. Essentially for television. So just be the main point of don't worry about shying away from people who someone maybe that looks different, people are just people. Another thing would be for people who are perhaps work with organizations or agencies that help people with disabilities, sometimes I have heard well, I don't know, I can't get coverage for something or you never covered this event when I was at the station or you never really focus on A, B or C and I would say that, you know, don't hesitate to reach out to media organizations, especially seeking more local level. The Binghamton market is a smaller television market. I was in New York City which is more difficult to access the news room and get their attention. But certainly in a lot of these markets if you can put together a press event or a news conference, you know, at least in the Binghamton market we would show up if at all possible and certainly having visuals there for it is television after all. So, you know, just sometimes you show up and you just have one person to interview and there was nothing to film. First to help tell the story and that got to be kind of problematic because what do you show for the video. But a lot of times especially like the southern independent center in Binghamton did a great job of organizing news conferences and to get their message out. There would be certain hot button topics in the Binghamton area that would be going on which is the broom developmental center which basically was an institution for people with intellectual disabilities and the state is in the process of shutting that down. So the Independence Center reached out to media through letters and through news conferences and things of that nature to basically get their message out. One of the things that could be very difficult, especially when you are on deadline pressure is to make a lot of phone calls or sometimes you call up someone to try to get the other side of a story and then you have to leave a message and then they don't call you back until later. If you are an organization who can reach out whether it be to the news director or the assignment editor or if you know a reporter if you can make contact with a reporter to say listen if you are going to do a story about whatever the issue is, you know, I would be happy to provide whether it be a statement, interview, so you can kind of balance the story out. So you have both sides. And then just to be available that day. Someone calls you up to say hey we are doing the story. Come on over. Or if you can't do it, then have someone else that's available to do that interview for the station. I guess the last thing I would say is, you know, as far as the webinar today I think in-I guess the way that I had been looking at it is Hannah had already kind of referenced this, no one is trying to force anyone to use necessarily certain language. It is really a matter of respect. And I know every now and then at the station I would have certain companies that would try to basically write my story for me and we are not going to do that. And, you know, I need to break this down more and whatever the case is. But this isn't about trying to control even what wording you are using. It is just really about respecting individuals and I think, you know, just two quick examples. I was at a conference earlier this year and I was talking to a gentleman who had not a vision-it wasn't a visual disability but he had a disability and he was just sharing with me he goes one of the things that really gets me angry and he really emphasized the term angry when people use the term retarded and we started talking more about this because it diminishes the value of these-of people and their contributions and things like that. And I never really had thought about it like that before. I didn't use the term but at the same time I guess that just really wasn't crossing my mind as far as what impact it actually had on people. I was thinking gosh if I was still at the station, not just the term retarded but other words, too that perhaps would be offensive to people, I don't want unnecessarily offend someone. Sometimes people take exception with the stories that you are doing and they can get angry or upset because they don't like the way it was or it was a negative story about them because they had done something wrong, whatever the case is, but, you know, if you just reporting on something, I don't want to anger part of my viewing audience and that was something that really just had made an impact on me. So I guess there is a few points that I just wanted to bring up and I guess I will stop talking. So I guess the discussion can go on. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thank you so much Peter for again your valuable insights at being both, you know, working with disabilities with us here at Cornell and also the part of the-as a media professional. Thank you so much. Well that leaves us up to -- We wanted to leave 15 minutes to allow our audience members to post questions and to have a discussion between our audience members and all three of our wonderful panelists that we have here today. So Robin are there any questions currently in the question box? ROBIN JONES There is actually a-we will have the operator give instructions again to the individuals on the phone and so we can have them remember how to ask questions again. So operator why don't you go ahead and do that. OPERATOR Thank you. Again ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star and then the 1 key on your touch tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue please press the pound key. ROBIN JONES Great, thank you. We had somebody who made a comment. I'll just review the comment, it was part of the first discussion but I felt relatively throughout. They were actually making a note about statistics and the numbers that are used or cited often about people with disability in the United States through various surveys and their really making the point that the surveys take in to account the those living in the community and not those that are living in institutionalized settings. And that can lead to a significant difference in the numbers of individuals with disabilities. The surveys being used by the census bureau the definition of disability falls in to different categories, visual hearing mobility, cognitive, self-care, and independent living. But just looking at those it doesn't really capture those things that are hidden displays. They make a good point about knowing it and using statistics out there related to that. HANNAH RUDSTAM Yeah, that's also - glad this person brought that up. We have the one in 5, 20%. You might notice there are different statistics around the number of people with disabilities. It is very large, that 20% mark tends to include the number of people with disabilities who have a disability as defined by the ADA. If there are other definitions of disability used we could get a very different number. But generally we like to use the ADA one. So thanks for that comment. Great. Any other comments or thoughts or questions? ROBIN JONES Yah and then we will go to the telephone and see if there is any there. Another comment, asking what panelists have to say in today's political climate, with the whole issue of political correctness and such, how do you either define or defend political correctness as it relates to the use of terminology and people with disabilities? HANNAH RUDSTAM Interesting question. Would any of our panelists like to jump in on that one? MARY CATT This is Mary Catt. I would say anything that is-I would defend anything that is done with respectfulness as Peter says on, you know-I don't think that there is a standard PC this or that in the world of disability language. That's widely accepted but I would say that if someone is authentically trying to be helpful on, that, you know, most people would respect that. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thanks Mary. Any other panelists? JOHN ROBINSON It is John. I think the best journalists are the ones that ask about it instead of trying to label it on their own. And then it gives me the opportunity to be able to answer it. We all live in a politically correct world right now and I think when we can ask what the person wants, or expects then I think we are in a better place. And that's something that we should be aware of. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thanks. All right. Robin would you like to go on? You said you had another question. ROBIN JONES No, I was going to find from the operator. Do we have any questions from those individuals on the telephone at this time, please? OPERATOR Again ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star and 1. One moment for questions. And I believe we have a follow-up from Danita Applewhite. Your line is open. Hello. Please unmute it. CALLER Okay. I'm here now. I just wanted to ask a question to the panelists. And I had mentioned a little earlier that my work in the media, especially in the radio I'm constantly having veterans call in, especially veterans, call in, a lot of nonveterans and what I am still hearing and I just want to know what your comments are, and what I said, is that yes, we have to change the attitudes and perceptions of the public but there is also-we feel there is also need for the individual with disability to understand what perception they have about disability. And to be able to know what questions to ask because many of the people that I'm dealing with don't even understand what accommodations are needed. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great question. Thanks Danita. Actually this issue is-you bring up an issue that we really haven't touched upon yet and what is the role of the people with disabilities themselves in changes how disability is reported. Do any of our panelists like to weigh in on this? JOHN ROBINSON Yeah, I don't mind. It is John again. I am obviously a person with a disability and it is obvious and visible. I think I have a responsibility to represent myself in the best way. And to be an example for others. But I also gives me an opportunity to preach a little bit to other people with disabilities and say it is how we represent ourselves. It is how educated we are. It is how comfortable we are. And if we present ourselves in a way that is open, welcoming then people will treat us, you know, the way we want to be treated. It is-and I say this all the time in the talk that I give either privately with people with disabilities or a general audience, its equally my responsibility how the world sees me as it is the world and I truly believe that. If we are-if we stand up and are better and stronger with each other and honest with one another then those numbers at the very beginning of this webinar will go down and that's a good thing. HANNAH RUDSTAM Yeah. Great. Thank you. CALLER Can you hear me say thank you? JOHN ROBINSON Yes, I do. Because you are re-enforcing one of the principles that I use and that's be the change we want to see in the world and that's from Mahat Gandhi and that's applicable to all of us who are dealing with any form of disability, especially nonvisible that we need to be that change first and can impact. JOHN ROBINSON Amen. Go back to the story that I illustrated about either what the buffalo paper called us or the argument we are having with the general public right now in Syracuse. If I went on our soapbox and said it needs to be paved because I need to able to use it or how dare you call me stumpy and it would make other individuals with disabilities look poor. That's not what we said. What we are trying to say is we deserve equality. We deserve our half of the responsibility to ask for that equality. But it is equally our responsibility and that's what we feel is very important. HANNAH RUDSTAM I wanted to also ask Allison who has looked at social media and disability which is such an interesting emerging issue, it seems like in social media that people with disabilities have many more venues now and better platforms to reframe the concept and discussion of disability. But in the examples that you gave, particularly one that's a nursing student, that's-that wasn't happening. Do you see what is happening in social media, people with disabilities using social media to refrain the discussion? ALLISON WEINER HEINEMANN Absolutely. And this is why it is such an important platform to consider is because it does allow people with disabilities in incredibly crucial venue to change the conversation as I said earlier to actually start defining what is the news and what is news worthy and retelling the story as it were. So I had briefly mentioned I had kind of glossed over these examples at the end but referring to the UK Twitter campaign which really helped to make political change in the face of governmental austerity cuts and there is a great campaign on Facebook and it is called this is what disability looks like and it is run by people with disabilities and it's about you know really about refuting this diazotization I talked about, it is about people with disabilities do every day things. We just-when people are represented in these really troubling extremes we align the everydayness of life and we refuse people with disabilities the right to be every day citizens. So it becomes an incredibly powerful tool for people with disabilities to actually change the conversation from within and that's why we have to really ensure social media accessibility too because that's a huge issue. These very important platforms are not accessible. About a third of social media sites are actually accessible by screen reading technology and at the same time I really want to emphasize and I really emphasize this as an educator too we have many students with disabilities in the disability study sequence but we have people students who don't have disabilities and it is about teaching them to be global citizens, especially in the world of work. And the onus has to be on nondisabled people. It can't be entirely on people with disabilities. It needs to be a matter of using things such as social media as a tool to educate. To really be able to debunk the kinds of stereotypes and problematic conversations that are happening and to share posts like these but to change the conversation. So I think it can be an incredibly important platform for people with disabilities but it needs to be a shared responsibility. It cannot be a sole task by any means. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thanks Allison. Peter, in your statement that you had made you talked about sort of issues around the comfort level of reporters and, you know, gaining trust and so on. Would you like to weigh in on this issue of what the role of people with disabilities are in the media? PETER QUINN Sure. I think that-I agree especially going back to what John was saying and, you know, I kind of relied on-if someone doesn't have a disability, they really not thinking about disability. The average person out there and essentially the average reporter for the most part. So that's why if instead of encouraging people, I mean if they can reach out, you know, to do so because I certainly had people do that to me. And really made me just, you know, kind of stop and think and put myself in someone else's shoes and kind of changed the way that I approached certain stories. I guess one-I remember there was a thing with Rick Yarish who was in the Army and he lives in the nearby town from Binghamton and he was burnt over 60% of his body after being hit with a bomb and he is a motivational speaker now and goes in to schools and companies and I was going to interview him one time. And we had about 15 minutes before the event started and I had already done my one-on-one interview with him. And we just started talking. He is visually scarred from being burned. And, you know, a lot of people when they first look at him he are like wow and they are taken aback and we were laughing and chatting about whatever and I think if-the more people just reach out and the more there are connections that can be made all of a sudden you really start forgetting this person has a disability and that's I guess that's what we are looking for and that really that people are people. And it doesn't have to be all these lines drawn because there shouldn't be but I think the way that society has functioned in the past, you know, it is just gone that way. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thank you. Well, we have a couple three minutes left. Robin are there any other questions or comments in the chat box or any others? ROBIN JONES Let's check one more time with the operator to see whether or not there is anybody else who has asked for anything on the phone and then otherwise I do have one more that's kind of a follow-up to what you have been talking about. Operator? OPERATOR I'm not showing any further questions at this time. ROBIN JONES So we had a discussion of social media has brought a question here. So talking about social media and how it is used and such but there is a good deal of inaccessibility in social media. And it is not fully accessible. So do you have any suggestions, any work arounds or anything that people can work from or sometimes work arounds that can be kind of cumbersome too but do you have any suggestions of how we can concept about how we write with people with disabilities and also how do people then access it at the same time, that's going to be the meeting that we are going to use to convey and discuss these issues. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great question. ALLISON WEINER HEINEMANN I mean there needs to be just a larger conversation. There needs to be awareness of the sheer inaccessibility of these platforms. There is the assumption with today's technology this must be accessible and there is not a recognition of different ways in which people need to process and access information. So there was actually a conference with the FCC held last year, it was in 2014 and it was you know to begin to really start to address this issue and but what it ended up doing was illustrating how dismal the state of social media accessibility is because representatives from the major social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter didn't even show up. The only representative from a major social media platform was linked in. That was the one exception. So we don't even have the social media organization's responding to this. So I mean there are definitely campaigns actually using social media platforms and I know Martlee Matlin has been a powerful spokesperson for the deaf community. You know giving her twitter account to call out Netflix, call out YouTube. Hey, these things aren't accessible. You have people who can use platforms using them but it needs to be a greater conversation. There needs to be a governmental push and there needs to be real accountability from these organizations themselves to actually do something about this. HANNAH RUDSTAM Great. Thank you so much Allison. And I want to-we are one minute overtime right now. I want to thank our panelist, Allison Weiner Heinemann, Peter Quinn and John Robinson and I hear in cyberspace a huge applause right now for you. Thank you very much, I know that I learned a lot from listening to you. And it was very, very interesting. If we could go on just very quickly, this is just a slide that shows. John Robinson's R ability and how to find John Robinson's R ability. If you want to contact any of us who were authors on this presentation, call this 800 number. 949-4232. Again, that's the Northeast ADA Center. Call us to reach out or any questions related to disability or disability in the media. You can talk with live experts at that number. And as always we are closing in on our time. Thank you so much to all of my coauthors and collaborators with us and thanks to Robin for sponsoring us and most of all thanks to all of you for your interest in this very, very important topic. We hope to hear from you again in the future. Thank you everyone. ROBIN JONES Thank you. And thank you to Hannah and to all of the great panelists and speakers today. We do want to thank you for participating in the ADA audio conference series. Just as a heads up the next scheduled session is October 20th, 2015 and our focus will be on social media and accessibility. It is kind of a nice interesting follow-up to this particular last ending of our conversation today. So again hope you can join us. For those of you that value your opinions and such you will receive a follow-up e-mail after this session and we value your opinion and please feel free to fill that out. If you would like a certificate of attendance for today there will be instructions related to that as well as how you can access a transcript and such of today's session at a later date. If you miss anything or you want to go back to it or want to refer somebody else to this information. So again thank you. You can hang up the phone if you are on the telephone. If you are in the webinar platform, all you have to do is just close your browser and you will be exiting the program. So again, thank you everyone and have a great rest of your day. OPERATOR Ladies and gentleman thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.