CHENNAI: Jason Strother is no stranger to India. Having navigated the narrow streets of Old Delhi in the back of a rickshaw, chilled by the beach at Goa, and learned about climate-related disasters, this multimedia journalist from New Jersey, USA, chose to work in South Asia for his research project as a Fullbright scholar. A person with a low vision disability, Jason has, over the years, changed his stream of reporting from international relations to covering news through the lens of disability and accessibility. He also runs Lens15 Media, which produces content for those with visible, sensory, or learning difficulties. Jason is currently researching how climate change impacts people with disabilities in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, and Indonesia.
A simple Google search with the keywords India, disability and climate change led Jason to Bhubaneshwar where he conducted his research from February to May 2023. “I was originally thinking about researching landslides or the Himalayan glacier melting and flooding in the north. But after the Google search, I learned about SMRC, a rehabilitation organisation for people with spinal cord injuries and other physical disabilities. They have done a lot of work on disaster planning and inclusive, accessible disaster management. I thought this was the place I had to be. Odisha is so vulnerable to climate change and has done good work saving lives in storms since 1999,” he explains.Elaborating on his journey, Jason spoke to TNIE journalists about his life with a disability, choosing to be a freelance journalist, his stint in Korea, and covering disability. Excerpts follow.
When did you realise that you had a low vision disability?
When I was entering kindergarten, I had to have a visual examination. I wasn’t doing very well. I was just given glasses. But over the years, it became apparent that I was having visual problems. By the time I was eight years old, we had seen a specialist who said that this was not a normal visual condition and that I was legally blind, meaning I had partial vision and low vision, and that this would never get better.
What kind of supportive measures were brought in at school and at home?
My parents never prevented me from doing things that my friends were doing. My school was generally quite supportive, too. New Jersey, in the late 1980s, was ahead of the game. But what really benefited me and every other person with a disability in America was that in 1990, the US passed the Americans with Disabilities Act that guaranteed accessibility, in education, in spaces having accessible infrastructure. I was 10 years old when the ADA was passed, so that meant I was guaranteed prioritisation and education, like getting extra time to take a test and having large print materials, if I required adaptive equipment, my school had to purchase it. By the time I was coming of age, the barriers for people with disabilities started to be brought down, thanks to the ADA.
How did you overcome hesitancy in advocating for yourself?
Grew up! Basically, I didn’t want to seem different. None of my friends in my hometown had a disability. In high school, I was the only person with a visual disability. I can only think of one or two other students who had another kind of visible disability. I had gone to two high schools and in my first one, I was bullied because of my vision. I had largely no friends because they thought I was so different. That compelled me to just downplay my vision, and try to pass as someone who was not disabled. When people asked me, I told them about it, and it wasn’t a big secret. But it was something that I wasn’t very open about. I didn’t want people to see the magnifying glass that I was using to read; I was embarrassed by that. But when you get older, those things become less important. I think my vision is the reason I wanted to travel. I wanted to see the world to disprove to (everyone) and prove to myself that my vision was not going to hold me back. I don’t think it was really until my late 20s that I started to realise, I really do see the world differently than everyone else.
What would you say to a student with a disability?
Students with a disability need to be comfortable enough to advocate for themselves. Because no one else is really going to. You don’t want non-disabled people to speak on your behalf. You have a right. If your physical or sensory condition or learning difference impacts your ability to complete assignments to take tests, it doesn’t mean you’re less of a person because you require extra time or different means of writing your exams or essays. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help.
In your 15 years in South Korea, what were the attitudinal changes towards disability there?
When I first went to South Korea, Seoul was not an accessible city. To cross some of the major streets in downtown Seoul, you had to walk down steps, use underpasses, or go on an overpass to cross major streets. But by the late 2000s, Korea had passed its own accessibility legislation. Now, Seoul is an incredibly accessible city and all around Korea, there is accessible infrastructure at most train stations and subway stations. But there’s still a lot of stigma about disability.
How did you decide to be a journalist?
I was always interested in media. Even in high school, I was writing for my school’s newspaper from time to time. I liked documentary films growing up. I dabbled in acting a bit, but I ended up studying television production in college and university. When in university, I used to be able to see the World Trade Center from the window of my dormitory in New Jersey. Seeing it go down and the smoke rising from Lower Manhattan for weeks after September 11, was a turning point. After that, I became interested in international politics, international relations, diplomacy and war. That, in time, sent me overseas to work in South Korea covering policies related to North Korea.
Tell us about your research in Odisha.
In 1999, the state was hit by a supercyclone. Ten thousand people died. I wanted to look at the ways in which people with disabilities have been included in that state’s disaster management protocol. Thanks to a vocal but small group of disability activists in Odisha, I have seen some significant progress in making sure that people with disabilities are prioritised in evacuations as well as sheltering ahead of the disaster. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the recovery phase. But what I found is that there is a conversation about disability and inclusion that is happening that I haven’t seen in the US and other places where I have conducted my research in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. I got to witness a cyclone evacuation rehearsal in June. Every June 19, they have statewide rehearsals and I got to visit one community in the Ganjam district where they work with disabled residents. It is a great protocol if it’s actually implemented during a real disaster. As I travelled more around the state speaking with different communities I found it didn’t always work out that way when there was a disaster. I’m right now working on a documentary that looks at disability in climate change and disaster planning in Odisha, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Sri Lanka calling it ‘Invisible Impact: Disability on Climate Change’s Frontline’. I hope to have that out later this year to coincide with the next UN climate change summit.
Are you worried about accessibility to materials when you go to other countries?
I cannot read printed material. Fortunately, even in India, most documentation is available digitally and are in formats that are accessible to me. Wherever I work, especially if I’m just on a short-term reporting trip, I often work with a local journalist or some assistant, who can help out with linguistic issues, and visual barriers to accessing information. I rely on interviews, especially with this documentary film that I’m working on. A lot of my stories were just kind of firsthand accounts.
What about the environment?
I have a lot of problems in terms of personal mobility when I come to India. I am a very independent person. I am a proud pedestrian. I don’t think I can really know a place until I walk around it. I can’t do that in India. It’s very frustrating to give up my independence when I come to India, I don’t feel safe crossing roads here. Bangladesh is definitely not accessible. In Colombo, people seem to follow traffic laws pretty well. I had no issues with personal mobility getting around Colombo. I spent two months in the Maldives. Malé is an incredible city. Some streets are not more than four metres wide and there are a million motorcycles. Still, I found that easier to get around than the streets in India, because they had big sidewalks. Traffic typically just goes in one direction and everybody is in fear of the police so they don’t break the traffic laws.
Have you faced rejection because of your disability? Did you ever feel vulnerable?
In 2010, North Korea bombed Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. I went to that island a couple of days after the bombing. While there, I ended up getting stranded as they cancelled all the boats. I was there for three days. All the locals had left. It was mostly just military people and journalists. A couple of hours before the boat was supposed to take me back to the mainland, air raid sirens started going off again. I thought North Korea was going to bomb this island again. That was the first time that I thought my vision was a liability to my safety. While reporting, I questioned how am I going to find the bomb shelter. If missiles or bombs started falling again, would I be able to spot them? Am I going to run the wrong way? Am I going to run right into an explosion or away from it…With that, another van with other journalists pulled up beside me, pulled back the door to get in and we went to a bomb shelter. We spent 20-30 minutes in that shelter. It was a false alarm, fortunately.
The other time was when I was covering the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The storm hit in late 2013. I was there in early 2014 to do some reporting on the recovery. Some villages were destroyed, they were still searching for bodies in the mangrove swamps. I went there with a colleague, we were following a team of cadaver dogs. There was just so much debris. My colleague and I agreed that it wasn’t safe for me to walk through that. He was the one doing the camera work, I could stay back. I was a little bummed, but I realised that this is for my own safety. That was the birth of my thinking about climate change and disability. If climate change is going to create more storms like that, what does that mean for other people with disabilities in terms of being warned about it, evacuation, and shelter?
Will you be covering elections in the US?
I hope not! I have no idea where I will be at that time (November 2024). If I’m around in the US, sure. But I would probably be covering it with that disability focus.