Good news on screen

The Media Trust ITN and Mencap have got together with people with learning difficulties to produce a pilot news programme aimed at and partly made by members of the learning disabled community. The show, which aired on The Community Channel on 28 March, set out to present news in a more accessible way and to cover stories of particular interest and concern to its target audience. Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self-Advocacy), co-presented the show with ITN journalist Olivia Hill. Lee told Disability Now the show had been well received.

“The reaction I’ve had from people has been very good. It was well balanced and it was nice to see topics like hate crime taken seriously.”

But he emphasised that the show had a dual purpose.

“It was an opportunity to educate people from within. At the end of the process, people I was working with understood why learning disability was such a political issue. They said, ‘we see you as the expert, come and teach us.’”

Further episodes of the show are yet to be commissioned but Lee is hopeful that consultation with viewers by Mencap will lead to future editions.