Despite years of progress, the media’s coverage of people with disabilities and the issues pertinent to us all too often remains condescending. Instead of investigating and reporting on disability news, reporters get lost in warmhearted, patronizing platitudes. The coverage of two recent events — the death of physicist Stephen Hawking and the Pyeongchang Paralympics — provided contrasting examples of the good and the bad of mainstream coverage.

Stephen Hawking’s Death

When Stephen Hawking died March 14, the world’s media outlets were awash with obituaries and tributes to one of the most influential and famous physicists of our time. There were a number that got things right, treating his disability as one part of the much broader story of his life. But right there along with the respectable coverage was the ableist drivel that we’ve come to expect from media representations of disability. In the lead sentence of its obit, CNN had this to say: “the brilliant British theoretical physicist who overcame a debilitating disease to publish wildly popular books probing the mysteries of the universe, has died.“

The Washington Post wrote that Hawking “overcame a devastating neurological disease.” A physicist who devoted his life to increasing humanity’s understanding of the universe, Hawking has said his disabilities “have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in.” But as far as easy tropes to color an obituary go, “devastated” and “overcame” both fit nicely.

The misplaced focus on Hawking’s disability wasn’t limited to traditional media. An illustration that became a viral meme showed a nondisabled shadow with very nice posture strolling away from a power wheelchair toward a glorious cosmic sunset, with the hashtag #RIPStephenHawking. The Twitter thread that followed is filled with responses mentioning that Hawking was very publicly atheist and railing against the insipid metaphor of death freeing him from his wheelchair.

To be fair, the pushback wasn’t limited to pissed off disabled people on Twitter or niche disability publications. Teen Vogue — which has become a publication with surprisingly progressive, thoughtful coverage of political and cultural issues — published a piece by Keah Browne, herself a wheelchair user, that dissected the problems of the “free from his wheelchair” sentiment. Men’s Health published a similar piece, and USA Today corrected some ableist language that appeared in its own obit and followed with a story that discussed the kind of backlash that the use of such language to discuss Hawking has caused.

The positive note here is that in the not too distant past, all of this backlash from the disability community never would have made it beyond our own echo chamber.

Pyeongchang Paralympics

On the other end of the disability in media spectrum is The New York Times’ recent coverage of the Pyeongchang Paralympics. They sent only one writer, Ben Shpigel, and a photographer, Chang Lee, but the two managed to produce some first-rate sports reporting that rivaled the best of the Olympic coverage. This is due in part to the talent and inquisitiveness of the duo, but also the editors at the Times. Shpigel describes their directive as such: “Feel free to explore a range of subjects and trends … but don’t write traditional profiles of particular athletes, no matter how compelling their back stories may be.”

The result was wide-ranging reporting that was entirely absent of the typical “overcoming the adversity of their disability” profiles that usually dominate Paralympic coverage. Instead, readers were treated to an analysis of the financial reasons that military veterans are filling an increasingly greater percentage of the U.S. contingent, a piece on why many of the world’s sled hockey teams are getting older and older, and the transition of training for the Paralympics from a part-time DIY affair to a professionalized full-time job, among others.

In the article “Steve Cash Was Already the World’s Best Sled Hockey Goalie. Then He Got a Coach,” Shpigel focuses on the coach and the inner workings of USA Hockey, in addition to the brilliance of Cash’s goaltending. Cash’s disability is mentioned in the same manner as his 5-foot-7-inch height: only in relation to the sport. “Cash offsets the size disadvantage with agility, speed and an economy of movement and equipment. Unlike many other single-amputees — Cash lost his right leg to bone cancer at age 3 — he protects himself with discreet shin pads, not the bulky versions that allow a sprawled goalie to eliminate the lower part of the ice.”

After reading all of the coverage surrounding Hawking’s death, those two sentences were refreshing. They treat Cash the same way any good sports reporter would treat any athlete, rather than admiring him for something that has nothing to do with his sporting genius. It’s true that single, lower-limb amputation is a very different, and perhaps less-uncomfortable disability for society to wrap its collective head around than ALS. But the framework behind the way Shpigel talks about the disability in all his Paralympic reporting is more or less what the disability community has been demanding for decades — focus on the person not the disability, and mention disability only in the context to which it’s relevant.

Shpigel’s articles prove that you don’t need to dangle disability like a juicy piece of bait to catch the interest of mainstream audiences. This kind of thoughtful writing may be in the minority in a wasteland of clichés and stereotypes, but it is out there.