Our Vision Statement: Disability Rights California will create individual and family supports, chosen and directed by the person with a disability

Disability Rights California

Working with the mass media

Throughout the year, Disability Rights California collaborated with advocacy groups to improve media coverage of disability issues, and worked closely with television and print reporters to expose abuse and neglect of Californians with disabilities. Highlights included:

  • In December 2007, CBS, the Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times all featured reports of our suit against the Governor to recover Proposition 63 funds, to support proven programs to assist homeless people with mental disabilities;
  • Staff organized well-attended workshops on the media and disability issues at the Respectability conference in Los Angeles in March 2008, featuring local filmmaker, Betsy Bayah and her award winning film “Outsider,” about an artist who had been institutionalized; and New York filmmaker Alice Elliott, who showed clips from her films about advocates working against institutionalization;
  • In the spring, staff joined protests against Michael Savage, a shockjock who used his nationally broadcast radio show, Savage Nation, to disparage children with autism and their parents – several major advertisers dropped the program as a result;
  • In July, local, national and international coverage of our investigative report on restraint and seclusion of children with disabilities in California schools was featured by several DBS affiliates, in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune;
  • In the fall, staff and board members participated in the national launch of a disability rights campaign by the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of TV and Radio Artists and Actors Equity to increase visibility of and jobs for performers with disabilities.