Thank you very much, Channel 4!

Channel 4 is trying to push disability into the mainstream – and get more disabled people working behind the camera.

About time too! Side note- did anyone else get the ‘push’ joke? Ha, ha.

This is an interview with a few DisAbled filmmakers, and Alison Walsh, Channel 4’s disability editor. My favourite bits:

“More and more [disabled] people in television are working on films – and not just being the subjects of documentaries about how amazing their disabilities are,” says Walsh, who has rheumatoid arthritis. “Although these sorts of films are good they cannot tell the whole story.

“As a disabled person you constantly feel that you’re having to teach people, but that is changing. Employers should be – and increasingly are – looking at a disabled person and thinking, what can this person bring, and then, when there are practical difficulties, realise that there are ways round them.”

Thank you very much. Again, about time too!

C4 has extended its researcher training programme and is aiming to introduce disabled people into commissioning and other areas where they are underrepresented, such as press and marketing. Walsh is doubling from three to six the broadcaster’s yearly accessibility placements for the disabled. The BBC similarly offers specialised work placement schemes for disabled people through its Extend programme – with many of those on the scheme going on to further work within the corporation.

Thanks agan, C4, and thanks to the BBC as well!

Pushing disability into the mainstream means that the days of specialist programming such as BBC’s From the Edge, C4’s Same Difference and ITV’s Link are over. “They did a job but specialist programmes made disabled people feel other and outside,” adds Walsh, who says she is “not a big fan” of employment quotas for disabled staff in broadcasting.

“I would rather see us encourage disabled talent in other ways than tick boxes and set targets. The best way to tackle prejudices is to put a disabled person in a team working on a television project and lead by example. If you work with a disabled person you discover that they were not different to anyone else and have something different to bring to the party.”

I love the name Same Difference, as you all know already, but not much else about the idea behind it. I couldn’t agree more with Walsh!