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We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

Read all about it? The destructive disability narrative filling our papers.

Cher_Alumni

On the 26 May 2023, Scope published an open letter to the media calling out a slew of recent headlines unfairly targeting disability benefit claimants.

Replete with outdated stereotypes of disabled people as ‘lazy’ and a ‘burden on taxpayers’, these provocative soundbites place the blame firmly at an individual level, overlooking multiple factors contributing to relying on social security – needless the obvious, that we are all temporarily able-bodied.

As Scope state:

This destructive narrative – that poverty and disability are caused by poor life choices - is wrong. In fact, it could not be further from the truth.

Today, Scope has tweeted citing another incendiary newspaper article, namely The Telegraph’s 'How much your salary bankrolls the welfare state’ piece and calculator calling it ‘irresponsible’ in repeating the burden rhetoric.

📣 This harmful narrative about disabled people must end.

It’s time to ditch the 'burden' rhetoric for good.

Coverage like this is irresponsible. It has a direct impact on how disabled people see themselves and how others see them. https://t.co/InGIY6pwLJ
— Scope (@scope) June 2, 2023

Over to you:

Have you noticed an uptick in news coverage attacking disability benefit claimants?
Does the angle, and language used in coverage, impact you?
Does the framing of welfare claimants determine what newspapers you read?

Let us know in the comments below.

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Comments

just4once

Most definitely it causes impacting uncontrollable bias especially with hidden disability issues and discrimination it impacts peoples judgments negatively including mental health

Cher_Alumni

Thanks for your comments, there is that ableist bias at work I agree. We're socialised into believing the non-disabled, productive body has the most value, that how much we earn equates to our worth. And to see mainstream media reinforcing this messaging is particularly troubling, especially for disabled people who might internalise the belief they aren't enough. When they really are.

Good point about it being a consequence of the pandemic spending. And I wonder about the long-term, would a change in government halt the march I wonder?

WelshBlue

You can't expect much else from the right-wing papers ?
Makes me wonder how many Tories think the solution ... is the final one ...

No-one should be made to feel ashamed about their disabilities and these rags seem to try and make it a us carrying them scenario. No matter how much us may have paid into the system

I no longer worry what others think about my 'hidden disabilities' ... if they can't say it to my face. Go swivel.

Ask and I'll explain why I'm not working 6 days a week 10 hours a day. Why I couldn't claim benefits for 2 years because I had to live on my savings I was lucky to have, through working myself into the ground

If ableist means losing compassion ... they're welcome to their narrow minded views, and it's wrong of me but I hope karma teaches them humility.

Be proud of who you are folks

NCL

I've recently experienced more overt public hostility, and I'm wondering whether that's a result of the negative media coverage. Anyone else finding this, or is it just my bad luck and a coincidence?

JudithL

I find it appalling and worrying, language is powerful and affects and behaviour. It fuels unhelpful attitudes and doesn't reflect the truth. I do think it's already increased public hostility, though I haven't experienced it myself. I certainly refuse to read certain media outlets because of their attitudes in this area...I've been doing that since the 1980s, but I do think it's increasing.

Stellar

the tories and blairites are clearly preparing to launch their next stage of democide towards the disability community, hence why they're doing this.

that email the telegraph wrote asking people to see how much money disabled people cost them is something the Nazis did when they ran Germany. Textbook fascism.

be very afraid.

petur64

My opinion is that this narrative originates by (right-wing politicians, i have noticed that since Covid, I'm referred to by govenment and press, as
"economically inactive" . Without doubt i recon people with disabilities are less 'economically inactive' then the others who ever they might be.(mp's)
I hate hearing this narrative being told by politicians, tv and newspapers.
A society of 'for or against' or 'you are with us or you are not'
The middle ground appears missing.
I would like to strive for a more social society, but then 'they' might call me a Socialist (another dirty word in GB society) Apparently i wont be going to work anymore for a long time (im 58)
disabled and 'economically inactive' the previous 40years of 'productivity' and 6 years serving NHS, dont seem to count
Competition, survival of the fittest, every one for themselves, seems to be the norm.
This is my own opinion tho.

JessieJ

I avoid the news, it is far too depressing, I just keep up with local news now & that's bad enough. Reading comments under stories, not always about benefits, plus on various forums, it seems to me that it has got worse since UC & including disabled. An awful lot of comments are sickening & I've noticed, quite often made by pensioners. Obviously a lot come from the rhetoric from government & mainstream media.

petur64

Hi @EffinMuppet, i totally agree with you, i just think you worded it better then me! I too am still employed 2 years on( no pay) my employer says he wants me back, i think he dont want to risk layin me off(disability rights). Yes i steer clear of politics as they dont seem to resolve much.

2oldcodgers

petur64 said:

Yes i steer clear of politics as they dont seem to resolve much.

You are probably right.
However and I now refer to a question my dear beloved wife posed of me today. Does the general public really know the full details of the gravy train that all politicians including town, district and county councillors are on?
Politics does work but only for those who are in it.

OverlyAnxious

EffinMuppet said:

That said, there was a movement in our own history for that, I forget what it was called and who was involved (I'll have to Google it now!), might have been someone trusted and important like Baden-Powell, but their aim was to breed a master race, which meant culling and breeding out people like us.

It's called the Eugenics movement. They never suggesting culling people, just sterilising them to remove undesirable traits from future generations. Churchill was a great believer in it.

Honestly, I don't think it comes from a bad place. I certainly wouldn't inflict my own conditions on another generation. Although I'm fully aware that's my choice to make, and that the idea of the Eugenics Movement was removing that choice from the individual.

WelshBlue

2oldcodgers said:

You are probably right.
However and I now refer to a question my dear beloved wife posed of me today. Does the general public really know the full details of the gravy train that all politicians including town, district and county councillors are on?
Politics does work but only for those who are in it.

True. The other month, local County Councillors voted to lower funding for day centres where young Adults with disabilities/ learning disabilities go, so they only open 1 day a week instead of 3, to close most public toilets, to limit opening hours of leisure centres and to close recycling centres

Then next day voted to accept an 8% pay increase ...

Cher_Alumni

@EffinMuppet Goodness, what a response from your old boss

It's exasperating.

Disability Rights UK have made an official press complaint based on the recent Telegraph story, if anyone wants to take a peek.

rustledjimm

The right-wing media needs to blame all the underdogs to take people's thoughts away from who's really benefited from these past few decades.

If it can get all the lower-class groups to fight among each other they won't look at what the upper-class are doing.

Spoonbill

The business-friendly yet bankrupt Torygraph there, making sure potential bidders from Daily Mail Group and GB News see it's potential for selling more hateful nonsense to a fearful public. 💩👍 As to the questions:

Have you noticed an uptick in news coverage attacking disability benefit claimants?
I've noticed the DWP, government, right-wing think-tanks and sadly PLP pushing direct or adjacent narratives (albeit often within superficially innocuous "common sense"/"both sides" speech), which then gets picked up by the media and scarcely questioned.
Does the angle, and language used in coverage, impact you?
Impossible for it not to, really. The question is, will it gain traction and lead to more and worse, or have we finally got to the point where the general populace might lose appetite for manufactured sensation? (Hangs in the balance, IMHO).
Does the framing of welfare claimants determine what newspapers you read?
Personally, paying money I don't have to read stories generally constructed by hacks to justify moral bankruptcy seems like mild self-abuse. Sadly I struggle to convince others that they're rotting their brains with drivel like the Telegraph's recent hit-piece - like most awareness, media literacy takes work. If there's a silver lining, it might be that those disabled people who felt that this sort of speech was fine against migrants, queer people or many other vilified groups might now see those debates in a different light, reduce their consumption of populist media and have a look around at possibilities for more-informed debate and work to combat the violence against ALL OF US. (rant over)