Diversity at Work

GUIDELINES FOR COVERING INJURIES

Keep the following in mind when covering life-altering injuries: Avoid language and tone that implies someone's "life is over" if he or she is paralyzed or disabled in some way. If the athlete recovers, avoid using terms like "miracle." While an injured athlete may lose the ability to walk, that individual's importance as a human being has not been diminished. Our coverage should underscore that fact. Find out what the team or league is doing to help the injured athlete recover, rehabilitate and re-enter society as a contributing member. Find other severely injured athletes and write about their "new" lives. Did they go back to school to pursue a new career? How did they adapt their homes to make them more accessible? Do they have health care that suits their needs?

I admit to zoning out during the sports report at the daily Page 1 meetings. Our sports editor is a great guy. But as far as I'm concerned, he is talking Greek.

But the day he brought to the meeting the story of Kevin Everett, I sat up and took notice. What caught my attention was how Everett's story exemplified the distinction between how people view athletes and the disabled. And how the news media pick up on that.

Everett is a tight end for the Buffalo Bills who suffered a life-threatening cervical spine injury during a September home game against the Denver Broncos.

On the days following his injury, the Buffalo community (which lives and dies by its Bills) waited and prayed for Everett. Would he survive his injuries? And if he did, would he be paralyzed?

Everett, it turns out, is a very lucky man. Minutes after his injury, the 25-year-old had received an "experimental technology that cools the body to limit the complications common to patients with serious spine and brain injuries," wrote The Buffalo News' medical reporter on Sept. 15.

Everett required serious spinal surgery. But within days, he came off the ventilator and started moving his arms and legs; he is now expected to make an impressive recovery.

Some are calling it a miracle. Others are hoping that the experimental therapy will become widely available to others who injure their spines, and not just athletes or those with the "right" health insurance.

But what fascinates me about stories like Everett's is the juxtaposition between all that athletes represent and society's perception of disability. I don't have to know the difference between a tight end and a fullback to see how uneven that playing field is.

Athletes are strong and powerful and therefore "normal." People with disabilities are weak and vulnerable and "not normal."

In our athlete-as-hero worshipping culture, there seems no greater tragedy for an athlete than to be "normal" one day and "not normal" the next. That's why, when an athlete gets hurt, you get dramatic language in stories and headlines like, "fallen hero suffering the ultimate tragedy" or "waging an inspirational fight for his life."

In other words, we in the media perpetuate the definition of what is normal. And while it makes great copy, it assumes that the athlete's life may as well be over because he will never walk again, never play again, never be "whole" again.

Everett's mother told the local media that "He's going to get up and walk out and be a whole person again."

I understand the fear and grief she must have been feeling. But there are millions of other spinal-cord injured people who do not define "wholeness" or anyone's value as a human being by an ability to walk.

In fact, many of them are still athletes playing wheelchair football, basketball, tennis, hockey and any other sport you can imagine.

Of course it's a tragedy when someone –- athlete or not -– is injured and loses a physical function. But we in the media should stop furthering the misconception that life is over -– or might as well be -– because a person can no longer walk.

The fact that Kevin Everett can walk again is less important than what he does with his new life. What will he contribute to a society that needs to understand that he is a "whole" and "normal" person whether or not he can run out on the football field?

Let's hope the media follows up on that story, too.