Innovate To Accumulate

Innovate to accumulate

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Why different audiences need a different approach

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Hey there

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Welcome to the latest edition of Journalism A11y, the newsletter looking at the many exciting ways news organizations and individuals are revolutionizing how they connect with diverse audiences.

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In this edition I’ll be looking at the BBC’s Rethink Disability Festival, a bold push to create more inclusive newsrooms for disabled journalists. Also a look at the Swedish radio station using generative AI to bridge the gap for deaf audiences. We’ll also take a look at how Channel 4 have teamed up with Apple to provide a whole new viewing experience, and as if that weren’t enough, a must read blog explaining the fundamentals of accessibility, assistive technology, and accommodations. ??Also your chance to complete the GAAD Foundation global a11y salary survey.

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Ready? Let’s go…

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Rethink Disability

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We know that if journalism wants to reach a wider and more diverse audience we need to have wider and more diverse leaders at senior decision making levels. This can only happen however if we have a wider and more diverse demographic coming into journalism. This chicken and egg situation is one of the main drivers behind the BBC’s Rethink Disability Festival which will take place on 4 December in Media City in Salford. Produced in partnership with BBC Ability and the BBC Academy and hosted by the BBC’s Senior North America Correspondent Gary O'Donoghue , the day will look to raise the flag for Deaf/Disabled and Neurodivergent journalists and call for newsrooms to become more equal and equitable workplaces for everyone.

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As co-chair of the BBC’s disabled staff network BBC Ability I’m passionate about ensuring we continue to push for more disabled staff across the organisation, and as a disabled journalist I’m equally passionate about ensuring we have more representation across our newsrooms. It’s this representation that’ll bring about increased awareness and understanding of digital accessibility which in turn will offer better experiences for all our audiences.

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My Ability co-chair Claire Harris FRSA sums it up perfectly when she asks “Why bother organising a Rethink Disability festival every year? What’s the point? Who needs to know?”

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Claire believes we need to reframe how we think about that.

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“It’s important we have more openly disabled journalists in our industry. It’s vital because journalists help shape culture through how we understand it as individuals, and how we choose to tell people about it.” She says.

“If we only understand disabled people to be ‘inspirational’, to have ‘triumphed over adversity’, to have ‘achieved a miracle’ by going out of our houses to interact with the world, we’re presenting a narrow view where we are still pointed out as being different.”

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Claire wants people to acknowledge that we’re all different and that newsrooms need to change the narrative around disability stories.

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“By only telling us stories about disabled people being ‘challenged’, that’s how we come to think about ourselves.” She says. “We’re being conditioned to think less of ourselves. To limit ourselves where we needn’t. It becomes internalised ableism.”

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Have a look again at the ?Rethink Disability Festival ?website where you can see all the sessions we’ve planned and how you can register to be part of the day. ?One of the most exciting sessions I think will be about the social model of disability and why it’s vital for newsrooms to encompass a new way of thinking. ?

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All about the audience

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It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sit any sort of exam, so I’m pleased to say that I’ve not only taken the IAAP - International Association of Accessibility Professionals CPAAC exam, but I’ve also managed to pass it, which means I’m now a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies. ?

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I’ve written here before about why I think accessibility and understanding of how all audiences access digital content ??is a vital skill for journalists to have and why journalists should be taught accessibility at journalism school. It’s all about the audience. We should always consider the myriad of different ways people interact with the digital environment ??and design accordingly. Newsrooms already do this when designing experiences ?and creating content for people browsing on mobiles vs browsing on a laptop or desktop. News organisations need to understand a lot more about how people are interacting with our content and ?be ready to either accept that we’re excluding some parts of the audience or adapt ???to meet their needs.

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The simple truth though is that outside the accessibility community I’m not sure many people know the basics. ??This great blog by Tiffany Wilson breaks it down and outlines the difference between accessibility, assistive technology, and accommodations. It’s ?a great starting point and well worth a read.

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The need to innovate

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One of the ways to adapt to meet audience needs is to innovate on how you broadcast or share your content. Channel 4's recent announcement on launching on Apple Vision Pro? ?is a great example of how to innovate to reach new audiences, and whilst it might be seen as a bit gimmicky and counter intuitive to the communal experience of watching TV to broadcast content in such a closed off way, the fact Channel 4 are willing to experiment says a lot. Apple have historically been pioneers in digital accessibility so it’ll be worth watching how this experiment pans out. We could be seeing a new dawn for interactive TV and accessible experiences.

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Swedish public service broadcaster Swedish Radio are also innovating through the use of generative AI to reach more of their audience. ?In this LinkedIn post about using generative AI to generate speech to text in order to better service their deaf audience, Swedish Radio Head of AI and News Strategy Olle Zachrison ??explains that the function will be rolled out initially to three of Swedish Radio’s titles with the hope it’ll go out to many more in the future.

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You can hear more from Olle Zachrison,? on the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism ??AI and the Future of Audio ?podcast series where he tells host Gretel Kahn ??more about how they’re integrating AI into their workflows. Worth checking out the whole series where there’s more innovative uses of generative AI for reaching more diverse audiences. ?

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GAAD Foundation A11y survey

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Money matters. Are you someone whose job primarily focuses on making technology or digital products accessible and usable for everyone?

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The GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day) Foundation is partnering with WebAIM to collect and share anonymized salary and other job-related data with the first annual Global Digital Accessibility Salary Survey (GDASS). The goal is to inform both organizations investing or ready to invest in accessibility, as well as the people who make technology or digital products accessible as they start or progress in their careers.

You can complete the GAAD Foundation Global Digital Accessibility Salary Survey here. It shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes.

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That’s it for now.

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Until next time, keep championing accessibility and pushing the boundaries of what journalism can be. ??

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Johny

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