EASTER SEALS SOCIETY

EQUALITY, DIGNITY, INDEPENDENCE (EDI) AWARDS

For nearly 30 years, Easter Seals has honored members of the print, broadcast and advertising industries for their positive portrayals of persons with disabilities and the coverage of disability issues through the EDI Awards. Renamed in 1990, Easter Seals' annual communications awards recognize the promise of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA offers opportunity and hope that Equality, Dignity and Independence will become a reality for the 50 million Americans who have disabilities.

Easter Seals created the EDI Awards to raise awareness of disability issues and to encourage realistic portrayals of people with disabilities in the print, broadcast and advertising media. The stature and prestige of the EDI Awards also has grown over the years. EDI Award hosts have included John Hockenberry, Cliff Robertson, Sally Jesse Raphael, Marlee Matlin, Phylicia Rashad, 1995 Miss America Heather Whitestone, Chris O'Donoghue and Leslie Uggams. The list of guest entertainers has been equally impressive. More importantly, however, the EDI Awards have earned prestige among the print, broadcast and advertising industries and are considered newsworthy.


While there has been significant improvement in the frequency and content of media coverage and advertisers' use of people with disabilities, much is left to be done. Emerging disability issues have the potential to become more subtle and perhaps divisive, making the influence of the EDI Awards more important than ever. In 1998, 300 guests attended the EDI Awards at the Marriott Marquee in New York City. The award recipients included print and broadcast journalists, advertisers and their agencies, and television producers and writers. The 1998 EDI Award for Television: Daytime Drama/Soap went to Port Charles/ABC for their positive portrayal of a character with a disability and the use of an actor with a disability, Mitch Longley, who portrays Dr. Matthew Harmon on the daytime drama, Port Charles.