MILAN — Would you ever call a WNBA player an NBA player?
For Chuck Aoki, that’s the comparison he uses when he is called an Olympian. It’s not a flattering title for Paralympians, who already face a coverage deficit. What media coverage Paralympians receive often revolves around disability rather than achievement.
Dani Aravich saw the gap firsthand in the lead-up to the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, when she worked for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Aravich, 29, began posting more herself to change the narrative. It’s the only way she could make an immediate impact.
That initiative led to the founding of Culxtured — a media collective dedicated to telling authentic stories from the Paralympic world. Aravich, alongside Aoki, Brenna Huckaby and Ryan Neiswender, started moving the needle on a platform that could bridge the gap in coverage.
“I realized a long time ago that this didn’t exist,” Aravich said.
While Milano Cortina will be the first Games for which Cultxured is assembled, the initiative is to progressively move the Paralympic needle into its own space, separate from Olympians, but one where coverage mimics the level of elite sport.
“This is just the beginning,” said Anna Johannes, the collective’s newest member. “It’s the tip of our iceberg.”
Holistic view of the Games
Increasing visibility for Para athletes is central to Culxtured’s mission.
“If you don’t see yourself represented, how do you know you can do it?” Huckaby said. “… We want more disabled people in sports feeling like they belong in a place.”
The collective also works to redefine how Para athletes are portrayed.
Coverage tends to lead with disability. Headlines celebrate how athletes “overcame despite” their impairments, rather than focusing on how they compete at an elite level while living with those disabilities. Culxtured wants the average fan to recognize how harmful the ‘despite’ story is.
“Our goal is to call people out and to make it better, and say, ‘This is how you tell the sports stories without putting this sometimes unnecessary sob story disability lens onto it,’ ‘ Aravich said.
When Aravich calls out, she also wants to bring people back in. It’s corrective, not rejective — something the collective wants people to realize to join the movement.
Johannes says coverage tends to come from an unintentionally ableist view, and the collective’s goal is to inform.
“It’s about calling people in and being like, ‘This is exactly where you want to be. You are a fan of this, and we’re going to help you understand how to be,’ right?” Johannes said. “And I think that’s where there’s been a gap.”
But part of that issue stems from access. For many fans, the Paralympics are their first exposure to athletes with disabilities. A Humanities and Social Sciences Communications study found that Japan, Malaysia and the United Kingdom were the top three countries with the highest number of articles and photographs at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. A hole remains in the United States’ coverage, leaving access limited while coverage fades between Paralympic cycles.
“I want the sports fan who claims they’re a sports fan and appreciates good sports to realize they’re also a Para sports fan,” Aravich said. “And for a lot of people, they just don’t have that entry point, because it’s not very accessible for people to get to experience it.”
Culxtured is not seeking to replace traditional media, but rather provide a platform to bridge the cycles in coverage. The collective plans to publish content centered around athletes, aside from their disabilities — using the help of freelance writers, retired athletes and content creators.
Aravich also wants it to be a place for fans to learn about Para sports — classifications, equipment, accessibility challenges and strategy.
“What I would love to see is that if someone has a question about elite, Para sport, they know to come to us,” Aravich said. “And if we don’t know the answer, we know someone who will know the answer.”
Until Para sports are fully integrated, platforms like Culxtured are necessary to ensure athletes receive coverage as elite competitors. And if that storytelling becomes standard practice across sports media?
“Then we’re doing our jobs, right?” Aravich said.
Trevor McGee is a reporter for the Paralympics Project, a partnership between USA Today Network and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
