[Journalists] Journalists Digest, Vol 98, Issue 2

Sat Sep 24 15:33:01 UTC 2016

Hi Annemarie,

When I talk about accessibility, I'm talking like what you mean - is the newspaper accessible to blind people? Are the pictures accessible? What about captions? If you follow a hyperlink, is that next site accessible? Journalism is going even more digital: How do you make news packages (videos) accessible? Those are the kinds of questions I'm trying to learn about.

I understand what you mean, that several newspapers are accessible via newsline, or their site or their mobile app. However, when I talk about community journalism, I'm talking about even smaller niches. For example: we just had to write a analysis of our hometown newspaper. I'm from a bigger city, Omaha, NE. When I wrote my analysis, I didn't do it on the local newspaper in town. I knew it was too commercial, too industrial, too big. So, I selected a smaller magazine in town.

I think people sometimes get confused. When they think community journalism, they often still think of some bigger newspapers - in Nebraska that would be Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, etc. My instructor wants me to go even smaller than that. I actually learned in class that the majority of newspapers across the country were weeklies, not dailies.

I hope this clears up any confusion. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask me.

Rachael E. Vacanti
(402)-960-9085 (mobile)
revacanti at Hotmail.com<mailto:revacanti at Hotmail.com>

________________________________
From: Journalists <journalists-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of Annemarie via Journalists <journalists at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2016 10:36:05 AM
To: journalists at nfbnet.org
Cc: Annemarie
Subject: Re: [Journalists] Journalists Digest, Vol 98, Issue 2

Hi Rachel,

What do you mean by accessible to blind people? Many newspapers including local and community newspapers are available on News line or by mobile app or online.

For example we subscribe to the Burlington County Times with you about it so you don't need to definitely have a talk with him first just had paid if I'm gonna be there.

My husband reads the print edition that gets delivered to our house and I am able to read it via mobile app on my iPhone so please say more about what you mean about "" accessible.

Many thanks,

Annemarie Cooke

South Hampton, New Jersey

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 23, 2016, at 8:00 AM, journalists-request at nfbnet.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Community Journalism (Rachael Vacanti)
>   2. Re: Community Journalism (Elizabeth Campbell)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:58:20 +0000
> From: Rachael Vacanti <revacanti at hotmail.com>
> To: "Journalists at nfbnet.org" <Journalists at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: [Journalists] Community Journalism
> Message-ID:
>    <BN3PR03MB217866034BD60059F121D685BEC90 at BN3PR03MB2178.namprd03.prod.outlook.com>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi journalists,
>
> I'm Rachael, a current grad student getting my masters at Ohio University.
>
> I'm writing a paper (fine multiple papers) for my community journalism class. Does anyone know any small-town newspapers I can look at to see if they're accessible to blind people? I'm looking for non-mainstream media. Weeklies or dailies in a suburb would be the best probably. I'm hoping to get this into a publication like CJR, Quill, maybe Braille Monitor, anything.
>
> If anyone can be of assistance please email me at rv233815 at ohio.edu, or by responding to this message.
>
> I'll probably be back in touch for my final graduate project as well for that class. It's a 3000 class, but they let grad students do independent study if they want, so I signed up and I'm loving it.
>
> Rachael Vacanti
> (402)-960-9095
> rv233815 at ohio.edu
> revacanti at hotmail.com
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:55:02 -0500
> From: Elizabeth Campbell <liz at star-telegram.com>
> To: Blind Professional Journalists List <journalists at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [Journalists] Community Journalism
> Message-ID: <dc7d77dea3edca296ad7853f19aae0ab at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Hi Rachael,
>
> I am happy to help with your research paper.
>
> The Star-Telegram produces several weekly papers primarily covering areas
> near Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. I write for the Star-Telegram but also
> write stories for the weekly called Hurst-Euless-Bedford News. My
> Star-Telegram stories are meant to reach a broader audience and often
> focus on controversial lawsuits or major economic development in area
> cities. The weekly papers tend to focus more on what we call hyper
> community coverage which includes happenings from the school districts as
> well as from city councils. Our weeklies also have a lot of high school
> sports coverage.
>
> I will send you links to the papers as all are online and accessible
> either via the web or on our app called ST Mobile. As you know, the
> emphasis is on digital first and promoting and posting what we do on
> social media. Most of our readers come to us via Facebook and from Google
> searches. We also get traffic from Twitter, although not as much as from
> the sites I mentioned above.
> So, we are responsible for writing SEO-friendly headlines as well as
> making sure we add keywords that are relevant to Google searches.
> Photos and video are also incredibly important, and we must post photos
> for all of our online stories.
> Then, we keep up with analytics using several tools including Chartbeat
> which gives you feedback in real time on how stories, videos and photos
> are ranking in online traffic.
>
> We are also working with a site called Omniture which gives a weekly
> overview of how much traffic our stories generated in terms of "unique
> visitors" how long someone spends reading the story, and so forth.
> Sadly, the analytics tools are not very accessible,and I don't work with
> them as often as I should. The same is true for our publishing system
> called NewsGate. I can do the basic functions such as creating story
> folders, files and photo requests. However, when it comes to tasks like
> choosing story destinations, tagging and putting the headline, byline etc.
> in to the proper fields, that is where access is nonexistent.
>
> Fortunately, the editors understand this and will put the headline, etc.
> in to the correct fields. I have a work-around of writing my headline,
> summary, etc. at the top of the file which also has the body of my story.
>
> I would venture to say that most of the major papers and news orgs will
> have pretty accessible sites, but I'm not sure about the smaller papers.
> Where I think those of us who are blind face more barriers is in the
> hiring process and then working in an environment where the emphasis is
> more and more on visual content.
>
> Sorry this is a very long answer to your question, but I hope this helps.
>
> Best
>
> Liz
>
>
> Elizabeth Campbell
> general assignments reporter
> (O 817-390-7696
> (c) 817-247-6862
> liz at star-telegram.com
> Twitter @fwstliz
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Journalists [mailto:journalists-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
> Rachael Vacanti via Journalists
> Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2016 9:58 AM
> To: Journalists at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Rachael Vacanti
> Subject: [Journalists] Community Journalism
>
> Hi journalists,
>
> I'm Rachael, a current grad student getting my masters at Ohio University.
>
> I'm writing a paper (fine multiple papers) for my community journalism
> class. Does anyone know any small-town newspapers I can look at to see if
> they're accessible to blind people? I'm looking for non-mainstream media.
> Weeklies or dailies in a suburb would be the best probably. I'm hoping to
> get this into a publication like CJR, Quill, maybe Braille Monitor,
> anything.
>
> If anyone can be of assistance please email me at rv233815 at ohio.edu, or by
> responding to this message.
>
> I'll probably be back in touch for my final graduate project as well for
> that class. It's a 3000 class, but they let grad students do independent
> study if they want, so I signed up and I'm loving it.
>
> Rachael Vacanti
> (402)-960-9095
> rv233815 at ohio.edu
> revacanti at hotmail.com
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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> ------------------------------
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> End of Journalists Digest, Vol 98, Issue 2
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