South Australian media outlets have been issued with new guidelines from the Department for Human Services (DHS) to steer their reporting about people with disability.
Announcing the State-first guide, Minister for Human Services, Michelle Lensink said the new Report it Right Guidelines were developed in response to reporting on the death of Ann Marie Smith.
Ms Lensink said the Guidelines aimed to support media to take a more inclusive approach to their reporting.
“When a person lives with disability, it does not completely or wholly define who they are,” Ms Lensink said.
The Minister said the Guidelines contained advice on words to use or avoid when reporting about people with disability, interview tips and suggestions on creating and selecting accompanying images and graphics.
She said a Statewide YourSAy survey on the Guidelines found that 72.2 per cent of respondents felt the media did not represent people with lived experience of disability in a positive way and 77.8 per cent of respondents believed the new Guidelines could improve community attitudes towards people with lived experience of disability.
“The good news is the media can play an important role in shifting the narrative around disability simply by focussing on the person, rather than the disability,” she said.
“With this in mind, it’s driven us to develop the new Report it Right Guidelines – a simple, easy-to-read document that seeks to support our media use more inclusive, respectful language and approaches to reporting, while maintaining autonomy and independence.”
Ms Lensink said the Guidelines would be distributed to South Australian media outlets, journalism schools and public relations bodies.
The new 24-page Guidelines can be accessed on this PS News link.
