This from the Guardian's "Question of the Week" column:
We ask: how can TV improve its coverage and portrayal of disability?
Roger Mosey, director of sport, BBC (soon to take Olympic post)
This
sounds dangerously like a corporate mantra but I'm an advocate here of
"fewer, bigger, better". When I came to BBC Sport there was a bit too
much token squeezing of disability sports into odd slots on Grandstand
- and I don't think that actually gave the proper profile. The
Paralympics, to which we gave record amounts of airtime this year,
worked because they were fantastically well staged; and you had large,
passionate crowds watching elite-performance sport.
If you
think about some UK-based disability events, like the Paralympic World
Cup, there's still great sport on show, but it was disappointing to see
such sparse attendances in Manchester this year.
So my lesson for
the future would be to concentrate on a smaller number of disability
events - but make them as big and as powerful as you can.
Richard McKerrow, creative director, Love Productions
Disabled
people are virtually invisible on mainstream British TV, in news or
current affairs and especially in drama. Yes, you get the odd
documentary, some news reports on disabled issues and characters in
dramas who happen to suddenly develop a disability. But where,
crucially, are the disabled reporters and presenters reporting on
everyday events? Where are the characters, who just happen to be
disabled, in our soaps and mainstream dramas? We need to take some
lessons from US drama where there is a far better reflection of
society. Until this happens we will remain afraid of disability and we
will need to carry on trying to make provocative disabled series that
challenge mainstream thinking, like our programme Britain's Missing Top
Model.
