Example No. 5,350,000 Why Big News Outlets Must Invest in Disabled Writers
Late last week, New York Magazine published a deeply reported story by Ben Terris on Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman. The piece, headlined “All By Himself,” is an astounding fit of journalism; Terris and his editor(s) deserve the utmost kudos for their work. At the same time, the piece also is soberingly illustrative of society’s collective fear of disability and of the disability community writ large. On Twitter/X, New York Magazine described Fetterman as “an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for, and whose mental health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported,” adding the senator’s staffers—and his family, particularly his wife Gisele—“now question his fitness to be a senator.”
“All By Himself” depicts people in Fetterman’s orbit being understandably concerned for his mental health and wellbeing, but it’s more. In actuality, it shows fear of disability.
It’s a notion I readily picked up on early in my reading of the story, with Terris writing about Fetterman’s need to use captioning features on his iPhone to help compensate for his audio-processing disability stemming from a stroke suffered in 2022. It should not be alarming in the slightest, even for a sitting public official, to use their iPhone (or Android phone, for that matter) and use accessibility features to make conversations more accessible. At his core, Fetterman is a man who had a stroke and had his cognition affected accordingly; if he is indeed on a “recovery plan,” as Terris says, then of course Fetterman is going to use technology as part of it. If Fetterman weren’t a notable public figure, his care routine would be normalized by his medical team and his family and friends. He very likely would be encouraged to use captioning on his iPhone in order to bolster his comprehension of conversations he holds with other people. The whole point of accessibility, whether digital or tangible, is to provide disabled people—and make no mistake, Fetterman is disabled—access to the world. To say that Fetterman used an accommodation in order to participate in an on-the-record interview is to insinuate accessibility software is inherently bad or a canary in the coal mine.
I’m not going to argue mental fitness for those holding public office. Whether or not Fetterman is cognitively capable of serving his constituents is beyond the scope of this piece. There is a cogent argument to be made for his decreased cognition affecting his policy stances, not to mention his general demeanor. But the enduring vibe of Terris’ story is unmistakably dour: people are scared shitless of disability. That is the most important takeaway from “All By Himself” in my view; it reinforces the idea, however unstated, that disability is a fate worse than death. As a lifelong disabled person, the aforementioned vibe is bothersome because the implicit lesson is that people with disabilities somehow are “lesser” humans that ought to be pitied as the moribund, sorrowful lot we are under the guise of ostensible “concern” for one’s mental health. To reiterate, there can be spirited debate over how much intellectual disabilities can, or should, affect a sitting senator; what’s clear, however, is Fetterman is getting the same type of coverage President Biden received following his disastrous debate last June.
Put another way, the mainstream media showed yet again it does not know how to cover disability with dignity. As I noted earlier, it shows society does not like disability.
As I said at the outset, Terris’ story is an exemplar of great reporting. At the same time, though, he would have been better served by including color from neurologists and other stroke survivors. Talk about what happens to the human brain when a stroke happens and paint a general picture of the recovery process. However great the reporting may be, Terris unwittingly (and unsurprisingly) doubled down on the harmful stereotypes which plague the disability community by casting Fetterman as a broken, feeble man incapable of caring for himself—let alone those he’s elected to represent.
In a journalistic context, “All By Himself” serves more evidence that newsrooms sorely need to invest in hiring reporters who are disabled. Disability, across politics or technology or any other vertical, sees a pittance of the robust coverage like other facets of social justice in gender, race, and sexuality. Terris’ story is proof positive of such a sentiment, as Fetterman is positioned, once again, as a “lesser” person and politician.
However compromised his faculties, Fetterman deserves better on Capitol Hill.
