ABSTRACT
Reflecting on her conversations with Canada’s pioneering disability beat reporter, Helen Henderson, the author critically considers the disability community’s concern about media (mis)representation that comes with a flawed suggestion: that a remedy for this issue is a disability beat. After years advocating for her role as a disability beat reporter, Henderson wrote a disability beat for the Toronto Star for 17 years before her death in 2015. Henderson revealed pieces of the “backstory” behind her beat in interviews, conversations and public talks between 2010 and 2014, wherein she describes the work and unexpected outcomes of challenging dis/ableism in the newsroom. This chapter critically unpacks the taken-for-granted rationale that disability beats lead to positive, rights-based disability representation. Here, the author reflects on the ways in which Henderson’s beat troubled and transcended modernist media expectations of disability, challenging readers to reflect on her work as they move forward to carve a digital cripped space for their own stories.
