Journalism will always need thoughtful human intervention

Are we in a Gen AI bubble?

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The Gen AI hype machine ?keeps going

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I’m a massive advocate for gen AI and what it can do for digital accessibility. I truly believe it’s likely to upend society as we know it, and this includes how audiences access content. We do need to be mindful and ?aware however and ensure we know exactly what we’re getting into, and more importantly, how to get out of it. In this thoughtful blog about the never-ending hype of AI ????Managing Director and Chair of FunkaFoundation Susanna Laurin offers a stark warning about allowing systems/interfaces/browsers to automatically understand the best and most accessible way to present content depending on what’s best for you personally. On the face of it this multimodal future looks amazing…but is it? It could be, but if you have to give up personal information in order to allow automatic recognition of your preferred way of accessing content, might it one day be used against you? How can we ensure that information isn’t going to be used for nefarious reasons? Worth thinking about. I know I’d jump at the chance to have a video automatically audio described or a presentation given a podcast style narration, but those preferred accessibility settings can tell a lot about us to other organisations. Insurance companies for example. Black Mirror stuff. ?

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Gen AI also came under fire recently when the polish radio station run by AI ?was forced to shut in the wake of huge audience backlash. Radio Krakow ??was initially set up as an experiment and was due to run for at least six months, but the editor in chief still believes the experiment was a success, despite admitting that the station wasn’t ready for the level of ?emotion attached to the experiment. That emotion may have come from people losing their jobs. Just a thought. It also proves many audiences mightn’t be quite ready for that big emotional jump to machine generated content. Radio is a very personal thing. ??Another signal if another signal be needed that we should slow down a bit and take time to think. It’s obvious the technology is here to stay, but it needs to be integrated into society on our terms. I keep thinking of tulips. ?

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Alt text for avatars?

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Regular readers of Journalism A11y will be aware of the guidance I created for writing meaningful text descriptions for images in news , but what about alt text descriptions for our avatars or the user photos we use to represent us on platforms like LinkedIn or other social media? ?In this thoughtful post about alt text for avatars, a11y evangelist Nicolas Steenhout discusses why avatars are used and why it’s important everyone has access to the information they’re conveying. ????I think this is particularly pertinent in journalism where we’re increasingly seeing images of journalists used in by-lines or in newsletters. A journalist will (usually) put a lot of thought into choosing and curating their user photo or avatar to convey a certain mood, so the same rules for text descriptions should apply. There’s a temptation possibly to consider an avatar or user photo as a decorative image and treat it accordingly. I agree with Nicolas in that it’s not a decorative image. You can glean a lot of information about a person from their photo ?so ?a meaningful text description should be included. ??All about equitability.

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People Fixing The World

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I’ve written before in this newsletter about the importance of ?providing news for people with learning disabilities and the different considerations journalists and news organisations need to consider when doing so.

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TV BRA (TV Good) in Norway is? a pretty unique? news organisation in that ?their regular news programme is made by reporters and journalists with learning disabilities ?for an audience with similar learning disabilities. The TV news programme has been on air for more than ten years and plays an important role in holding Norwegian politicians and other authority figures to account

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BBC journalist William Kremer went to Norway to talk to the reporters and BRA station manager to find out more about the offering and why it’s such an important news service. You can listen to People changing the world - the pioneering TV news service on BBC Sounds now. It’s a great listen.??? ?

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There’s also ?an Easy Read online article about TV BRA to go along with the radio programme. First time I think I’ve ever seen a major news organisation publish something in this way. So good to see. Fantastic alt text descriptions in the images as well. You can find out more about Easy Read ?in this AbilityNet blog and why it’s so important to create content that’s accessible to everyone.

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This thoughtful and detailed guide by a11y specialist Caitlin de Rooij which focuses on improving site usability: design tactics for cognitive disabilities also offers ?great insight into how we need to be mindful of all audiences ?and how they’re accessing our content. Probably one of the best guides I’ve read ?in this area. It’s not about compliance. It’s about the user experience.

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Reframing Disability

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I want to end this edition of Journalism A11y by giving a big massive congratulations to Priti Salian for one year of her Reframing Disability newsletter. ?It’s a truly remarkable milestone. Looking back over the content Priti has featured ?in the last twelve months proves that, although there’s a long way to go, the media industry really is? beginning to turn a corner. The vast array of positive stories? ??proves we’re on the right track. Huge massive congratulations Priti. I can’t wait to see what the next twelve months will bring. Truly all about progress over perfection.

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That’s it for now. As always thanks for reading and talk soon.

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Johny

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[email protected]

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