This was among various recommendations announced at the conclusion of a three-day workshop on the slogan "GCC press and special needs… where to?" organised by the Supreme Council for Family Affairs (SCFA) to mark the international day of people with special needs recently.
Journalists covering people with special needs’ issues should grant with the right to access information and maintaining secrecy about their sources.
Different media including radio, television, newspapers etc should give regular coverage and space to the people with special needs in highlighting their issues. It should also play a major role in highlighting society about the category.
Establishing Qatari websites for the disabled and their families to facilitate communicate spread awareness of disabled. Train employees working with people with special needs on media coverage.
Unify Arabic signal language for all TV channels to allow people with special needs in benefiting out from different TV programmes.
Highlight the bright side of people with special needs’ life different media and encouraging them to join media work.
Introduce a cartoon character for children to aware them of disability concept. Issue specialised publications for the disabled category by establishments working with them. Promote a signal language on the internet.
Merge disabled with the society by publish their news on the papers’ ordinary pages and not in separate supplements and seek society’s feedback on articles about people with special needs.
Local newspaper should add hearing-service on its websites to allow blinds category benefit from the service and specifying a weekly page for disabled articles. Hold a competition on ‘best article on people with special needs’ which sponsored by the local newspapers.
Finally, a monthly meeting is also recommended to be held between officials of the SCFA and media covering people’s with special needs issues.
