The Forgotten: The Media’s Deafening Silence on AI’s Role in Disabled Support

Why the Media Shouldn't Ignore AI’s Potential for Supporting Disabled Needs

Photo by Hans Moerman on Unsplash

How do you feel about media reporting? Does the media care about what you care about? 

If you feel they don't seem to care about what you care about, you are not alone. 

Trust in the media has been collapsing for years in most countries.

A recent IPSOS poll looking at the worldwide decline in trust in the media and the reasons why revealed the following:

These findings of fairly low trust in traditional media... are perhaps unsurprising, given the criticisms they have been subjected to in recent times; showing political bias, prioritising speed of reporting over accuracy, publishing inaccurate information and in the case of online platforms - using clickbait. Indeed, findings from the latest Ipsos Reputation Council showed that at a global level, media is believed to be among the top three industries currently facing the greatest reputation challenges.

While the degree of trust can vary in different countries, the overall downward trend in trust in the media is clear when looking at the big picture :

In most countries, trust is more often perceived to have decreased over the last five years than to have increased. Around a third of people across the globe (34%) trust newspapers and magazines less than they did five years ago.

Declining trust in the media worldwide: IPSOS

My particular area of interest & focus is how AI impacts society. There are many problems with the media reporting about AI, one of the key problems is the lack of diverse perspectives when the media considers the impact of AI on society.

In this article, we will look at how AI could impact people with disabilities, and why the media silence about the impact of AI on the disabled matters.

How The Media Ignores the Disabled

Most journalists believe they serve an essential public good for modern societies as 'the fourth estate' which is described as:

The Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle called the press the ‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’. By this, he meant that it acted as a sort of watchdog of the constitution and, as such, formed a vital part of democratic government. Most modern writers would agree that the mass media should play a central role in sustaining and developing democracy: the media should present a full, fair, and accurate account of the news, they should inform and educate the general public, and they should cover a wide range of political opinions and positions 

This sounds like a noble cause I’m sure you’d agree, however, as we saw a bit earlier that the reality is what most people feel about the media doesn't seem to reflect this high-minded goal.

As ThoughtCo wrote:

The use of the term "fourth estate" to describe the modern media, though, is somewhat outdated unless it is with irony, given the public's mistrust of journalists and news coverage in general.

The gap between how most Journalists see themselves, and what most people think about Journalists and the media, is a vast chasm ever-growing, it seems fair to say.

Journalists seem keen to claim how much they 'inform and educate the general public & cover a wide range of political opinions and positions' but to what extent is this true?

Looking at the news coverage of the needs of the disabled could perhaps be a good test. So how much reporting on the needs of the disabled is done by journalists and the media?

Not much, according to disability advocate Lisa Cox:

Over 1 billion people globally identify as having a disability. Yet those with a disability are not adequately represented in our media. I could write an entire article (and already have) on why representation of disabled people in the media is crucial from an ethical, moral and social justice stance... Most people with disabilities consume media every single day. I don’t walk but I do watch television, read the news and use my credit card. Ignoring this market share is bad for society and bad for business.

The Lack of Diverse Perspectives on AI

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