The 2010 Media Access Awards were celebrated Friday morning at a press breakfast at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.  The Media Access Awards honors individuals and organizations in the entertainment and broadcast industries for their efforts in promoting the awareness of the disability experience, accessibility for people with disabilities, and the accurate depiction of characters with disabilities. 

The 2010 Media Access Awards are co-sponsored by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), the Casting Society of America (CSA), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW), Friends of Californians with Disabilities, the Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, and R.J. Mitte.  The Awards were produced by Deborah Calla of Calla Productions.

The following awards were presented at the breakfast:  
    •    AFTRA Disability Awareness Award – Darcy Pohland, a successful newscaster in a wheelchair (posthumously, WCCO-TV)
    •    SAG Harold Russell Award – Danny Woodburn is an actor and a union advocate for performers with disabilities and Little People. (Seinfeld, Passion, Men In Trees)
    •    CSA Award – Robert J. Ulrich, Eric Dawson, Carol Kritzer, for diverse casting of actors with disabilities (Glee)
    •    WGAW Joan Young Award – Vince Gilligan, for creating realistic characters with disabilities (Breaking Bad)
    •    Producers Guild of America George Sunga Award - Mike Tollin (Radio, Smallville, Coach Carter) led a group of 12 Special Olympians up Mt. Kilimanjaro in 1990, which resulted in an Emmy Award-winning film, Let Me Be Brave
    •    Christopher Reeve Acting Scholarship – Christopher Thornton (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Brothers & Sisters), who became paraplegic in a climbing accident in 1992  wrote and co-starred with longtime friend Mark Ruffalo in Sympathy for Delicious which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival 2010
    •    RJ Mitte Diversity Award - Atticus Shaffer (The Middle), for an actor with a physical or emotional disability with limitations that would make an acting career seem implausible


The host for the Media Access Awards was KCBS/KCAL-TV Anchor Pat Harvey.  Presenters at the awards included actors Ron Livingston, CSI’s Robert David Hall, Glee’s John Autry, Lauren Potter and Zack Weinstein, Geri Jewell and many others.

This year’s Media Access Awards also marks the 20th anniversary of the American’s With Disabilities Act.  Signed in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act has fostered independence, empowerment and inclusion for millions of Americans. With an aging society in America, combined with a growing number of disabled veterans, recognizing the talents of disabled persons in the entertainment and broadcast industries is even more important than ever.   

There are an estimated 56 million Americans living with disabilities.  The entertainment unions and guilds recognize the social impact of films, television and broadcasting, and strive for an open dialogue regarding the portrayal of disability and increased employment opportunities in front of and behind the scenes. To that end, the Media Access Awards celebrate producers, actors, writers, broadcasters and casting directors who have made positive contributions to more accurate, inclusive portrayals of people with disabilities in film, television, and the media – and are pioneers in affecting change.

Past Media Access Awards recipients include: Michael J. Fox, Jose Feliciano, Robert David Hall, Anthony Edwards, Nancy Davis, Norman Lear, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Ray Charles, Diane Schuur, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Leeza Gibbons, Verne Troyer, Patty Duke, Carrie Fischer, Robert Guillaume, Montel Williams, Aaron Spelling, and many more.

The Media Access Awards was created in 1979 by the California Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities and producer Fern Field and her late husband Norman Brooks to recognize and encourage the accurate portrayal of people with disabilities.  The Media Access Awards seek to increase the inclusion of disability in what we see and hear, and to raise public awareness, understanding and acceptance.