Every week, at least one person with disabilities is murdered by their caregivers. Working with a small team, including – The Ruderman Foundation, researcher Kathleen Seidel, Vilissa Thompson, Timotheus Gordon Jr., and Zoe Gross with Autistic Self Advocacy Network – I led a study of 5 years of media coverage of the murder of disabled people.
We found:
- Outside of longform careful reporting, reporters simply don’t talk to disabled people about the murder of disabled people.
- Phrases like “mercy killing” remain far too prevalent.
- Sympathetic coverage of the killers, likewise, keeps happening.
- I did a podcast for the Ruderman Foundation
- I did an interview at WBEZ
Still more to come on this work over the next few weeks.