I was interested to hear Alastair Thompson, proprietor of Scoop talking to Kim Hill on national radio at the weekend. He used the media releases of the Minister for Disability Issues as an example of material which is interesting to disabled people as a particular group but not to the mainstream media. It obviously stood out in his mind as one of the more under-covered media topics.
What he didn’t say is that disabled people are 20% of the population, but obviously not the important 20% in the eyes of the media. Those who want to communicate critically important information to the disability community know that media releases, no matter how well written or interesting, will sink like a stone in the mainstream media. If it doesn’t bleed it doesn’t lead. But at least the releases can be aired on scoop.
When you search for ‘disability’ there it all is. But what about the ‘spin?” The mainstream media has no spin on disability? Yeah right. At least on Scoop you know who is generating the information in the release so you can make your own informed judgement on their ‘spin’.
