After NBC‘s roundly criticized interview (10/11/22) of Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, journalists covering Fetterman’s race ought to have learned a thing or two about covering his disability. Fetterman, who experienced a stroke in May, was left with auditory-processing issues and some impact on his speaking fluency. Analyses of the televised debate (10/25/22) between Fetterman and his Republican opponent, TV doctor Mehmet Oz, proved that, for the election press corps, ableism is not so easily overcome, and style is always likely to trump substance.

‘Will only fuel questions’

When NBC‘s Dasha Burns interviewed Fetterman for his first national television one-on-one since the stroke, her emphasis was on his language-processing issues and his health, rather than on his policy positions. Because of his auditory-processing issues, Fetterman needs closed captioning to participate fully in a conversation. It’s not an issue of cognition; it’s a likely temporary disability—common among those recovering from strokes—that simply requires accommodation.

But to introduce the interview on NBC Nightly News (10/11/22), Burns said, “In small talk before the interview without captioning, it wasn’t clear [Fetterman] was understanding our conversation.”

Burns spent the first nine minutes of the 30-minute interview exclusively on Fetterman’s health and post-stroke symptoms, asking him repeatedly about whether he was fit for office and why he wouldn’t release his full medical records. She didn’t ask a single policy-related question until nearly 12 minutes in.

Burns wasn’t the only journalist sowing doubts about Fetterman based on his disability. CBS‘s Ed O’Keefe (10/11/22) tweeted about Fetterman’s use of closed captioning for the interview, “Will Pennsylvanians be comfortable with someone representing them who had to conduct a TV interview this way?” The New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin (10/11/22) tweeted that it was a “rough clip” that “will only fuel questions about his health.”

The next day, after coming under criticism from both the disability community and some fellow journalists, Burns issued a sort of clarification on NBC‘s Today (10/12/22):

Stroke experts do say that this does not mean he has any cognitive impairment. Doesn’t mean his memory or his cognitive condition is impaired, and he didn’t fully recover from this. And once the closed captioning was on, he was able to fully understand my questions.

As disability rights activists argue, if a disability doesn’t impact someone’s cognitive functioning or ability to do their job, then highlighting it only stokes prejudice. Some thoughtful pieces were published drawing attention to ableism in media (e.g.,  Buzzfeed, 10/12/22; New York Times, 10/13/22; Slate, 10/14/22) , which offered ample opportunity for some introspection among political reporters.

‘I almost feel sorry for him’

Yet when Fetterman and Oz engaged in their only debate of the race just two weeks later, many journalists continued to present his disability as a source of doubt or weakness, and focused on that at the expense of policy differences.

In one of the most cringe-worthy examples of post-debate punditry, CNN Tonight (10/25/22) spent its entire panel on the debate critiquing Fetterman’s performance and questioning his mental capacities, with virtually no discussion of the two candidates’ actual policy positions and how well they align with voters’ interests.

Host Laura Coates framed “the” question about the debate as “how would [Fetterman] perform, given the stroke that he experienced back in May?” Her fellow panelists were ruthless in their assessment. Former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent said “somebody should have invoked the mercy rule” and ended the debate, claiming that Fetterman was “confused.” Later, Dent patronizingly commented, “I almost feel very sorry for him that, you know, he’s in a bad, bad way.”

Former Trump communications strategist Alyssa Farrah Griffin “found it extremely hard to watch,” and said:

I want to be careful because I think some of the most consequential leaders in history have had different kinds of disabilities. I don’t think it should preclude someone from serving, but what we saw today was someone who is not ready to be in office.

She repeatedly suggested that his processing issues were actually cognitive issues: “Is the way that he’s struggling a result of this stroke? Or is it because he doesn’t have a grasp on the issues?” And:

I was genuinely unclear if he understood how to address crime, how to address the economy and inflation. And then when he did try to lob attacks on Oz, they didn’t land. It didn’t seem like he had a full grasp.

It’s not surprising that GOP panelists would parrot GOP talking points, but it’s the responsibility of actual journalists to rebut false aspersions, especially ones that promote stereotypes and prejudices. Instead, Coates kept playing more clips of Fetterman’s miscues, and CNN‘s Alisyn Camerota pointed out that she had interviewed Fetterman many times in past years and that he “sounded different before the stroke. I mean, in the interviews he was much more sort of clear-spoken than what I’m hearing now.” By highlighting the obvious—that after the stroke, Fetterman’s speech is impacted—Camerota made an issue of his disability.

Symptoms in the spotlight

Many print publications also put Fetterman’s performance in the spotlight. Politico (10/25/22) went with the headline: “Fetterman Struggles During TV Debate With Oz,” followed by the subhead:

The Democrat’s speech and hearing problems were evident during a contentious debate with the celebrity physician that addressed abortion, the minimum wage and fracking.

The Washington Post (10/25/22) also put Fetterman’s post-stroke symptoms in its headline: “For Fetterman, Contentious Exchanges, Verbal Struggles in Debate With Oz.” Reporters Colby Itkowitz and Amanda Morris noted in their lead that Fetterman “often stumbled over his words and struggled with the rapid-fire format of questions and answers.”

In their second paragraph, they continued the theme, writing that his “speech was halting, and he mispronounced words and tripped over phrases.” Questions of policy didn’t appear until the fifth paragraph, but they were subordinated throughout to repeated returns to Fetterman’s health and verbal missteps.

At one point midway through, Itkowitz and Morris paraphrased a disability civic  engagement expert who argued that verbal “miscues should not be seen as a reflection on Fetterman’s ability to serve.” In the very next paragraph, they seemed to blithely dismiss her admonishment, writing that Fetterman “struggled over many of the lines” and printing one somewhat garbled response to a debate question as a gratuitous illustration of those struggles.

“His performance will test whether voters regard his impairments as temporary or even humanizing setbacks, or whether it fuels questions about his fitness for office,” wrote the New York Times‘ Katie Glueck and Trip Gabriel (10/25/22). Journalistic glosses like this imply it is really “voters,” and not elite media, whose concerns are at issue, and that questions about fitness are mysteriously “fueled,” rather than stoked by precisely this sort of coverage.

Both the Post and the Times pointed out that Fetterman opened the debate by saying “Good night” instead of “Good evening.” Obviously both knew that offers no useful evidence about his fitness for office; publishing it reads more like childish taunting than serious reporting.

Meanwhile, Oz, who during the primaries said abortion at any stage is “murder,” stated in the debate that abortion decisions should be made by women, their doctors—and “local political leaders.” He wouldn’t support raising Pennsylvania’s $7.25 per hour minimum wage. As the Philadelphia Inquirer (10/16/22) pointed out, he “opposes the expanded child tax credit, would repeal the Affordable Care Act and would vote against red flag gun-control laws.”

All of these major positions are out of step with the majority of voters. And, of course, he has promised to kiss the ring and support Trump in 2024, posing a threat to representative democracy. But in the debate and in the followup coverage, journalists seemed to find questions of Fetterman’s fitness, based primarily on ableist notions, far more interesting.

The post Framing Disability as Disqualification in Fetterman/Oz Debate appeared first on FAIR.

This post was originally published on FAIR.