D-Net is Honoured with Media Access Awards

What do "Baywatch," "Seinfeld" and "The Disability Network" have in common?

All three shows are winners of the Media Access Awards.

The awards were established in 1979 by the California Governor’s Committee for Employment of Disabled Persons to acknowledge positive portrayal of people with disabilities.

"The Disability Network" received an award in Excellence for Television Newsmagazine Programs. And Little Mountain: A Mother’s Story, a documentary aired on D-Net, won the award in the documentary category.

Earlier this year, D-Net won the media award of the Canadian Association of Community Living.

Don Peuramaki, D-Net’s senior producer, says that winning the awards was "very exciting and a real honour." But the awards represented something else.

"These awards recognize that people with disabilities play an important role in television programming," says Peuramaki. "That’s the most critical thing, and hopefully more people with disabilities will be seen in the media."

He adds that D-Net will continue to create hard-hitting, informative programs about people with disabilities.

"We’ll continue to make sure that people with disabilities can tell their stories. Our job is to show that people with disabilities are active members of the community who deserve to be heard."