Who We Are
When disabled people are seen on the news or in articles, they’re typically portrayed as either heroes or people to be pitied. And disabled people are often left out completely in developing communications strategies. While the industry has come a long ways in the last 20 years, we have much further to go to achieve accurate, inclusive media.
Disable the Media believes this change only happens when disabled people have roles at every news organization and on every communications team.
Our Mission
To guide the next generation of media leaders and to ensure that includes disabled professionals so the industry is inclusive, representative and accurately reflects people with disabilities.
About the Founder
Kristen Parisi is an award-winning writer and communications professional with an expertise in disability representation in media and has a BA in Strategic Communications. Her writing appears with TODAY and BuzzFeed, and was the featured with CNN. She has also developed public relations campaigns for companies including KAYAK, RELX Group and the UNEP.
A person with multiple disabilities herself, Kristen was frustrated being the only disabled person at work, events and disabled people not being thought of during the creative process.
Kristen has always loved mentoring, a likely result from her time teaching music to autistic adults and attending university for education. She created Disable the Media to make the industry she loves more representative of the people it serves.