Joan Esposito: Look up Access Public Media. And that is where you will find Stacey Kess, who refers to themselves as their dissident editor. Why didn’t I steal that? That’s such a good description. Stacy joins us now to talk about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Stacy, thanks for being here.

Stacy Kess: Thank you.

Joan Esposito: I would like to buy Dissident Editor from you. Or maybe I could just be Dissident radio host. You can have it. So, tell me about Equal Access Public Media.

Stacy Kess: Well, it’s an organization that promotes accessibility in the journalism industry and in news, so it’s sort of a two-fold mission. We, turned 2 years old this, last month in November, so, we’re, yesterday, finished out our birthday month. And, we are out to just break down barriers for people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, who are neurodivergent, veterans, caregivers, those who are traditionally, have a little bit more trouble accessing news, and those who tend to be left out of newsrooms.

Joan Esposito: You know, you’re, you’re really, you’re really right. I remember many years ago, when I worked at Channel 7, on our early newscast. We always had commentary, and there was a different person doing commentary every day of the week, and it got a lot of attention because we hired a deaf woman. I mean, she could speak, but it, you know, it clearly wasn’t, it wasn’t clear speech. And she would do commentaries about the disability community, and it was like, oh my gosh, what a radical thing to do. But when you think about it, I was brought up to believe that newsrooms should reflect their communities. And for many years, newsrooms were filled with white men, which is fine, there are white men out there, but there was, like, nobody else. And, you know, there was… there was real resistance to adding women, because, you know, women really aren’t as authoritative as men, you know? Absolutely. And then the same thing was true of every other, marginalized group. So. How do things stand right now? I’m racking my brain, and I know there are disabled reporters, but I’m not sure that I can think of one in Chicago.

Stacy Kess: And it’s… it’s not great. The U.S. does not track how many, reporters there are with disabilities. There’s no organization that really tracks that. So, earlier this year, in January, we put out a white paper, sort of on our ideas, our ideals, what we see as the future of newsrooms, how we see accessibility in newsrooms, even an idea on how we could see a national newspaper functioning. And we took the, bureau of Labor Statistics data on people with disabilities who work. We took their statistics on people who work in the category of, media, journalism, and they have sort of a broad category of, of people who work in the media, journalism, and sports, broadcasting, so on and so forth. And we did a little data analysis, and we came up with about 7, less than 8%, somewhere between 7% and 8% of journalists, are likely disabled. But I need to add a caveat to that, that even their data show that those journalists are likely underemployed or unemployed, likely working as freelancers, well, part-time, and so on and so forth.

The, Military Veterans for Journalism — I know I’m getting their organization name wrong — MVJ, it’s an organization that supports military veterans in journalism — They have done an analysis, and they find that about 2 percent of journalists are military veterans. Now, we know military veterans often have issues like PTSD, limb differences, limb loss, illnesses, injuries from combat. So, they may not identify as disabled or chronically ill, but they may have issues such as chronic illness or disability that they contend with.

So again, we’re seeing another, another group of people who just aren’t represented in journalism, but do have those issues. Caregivers. And we all know someone who is a caregiver to our parents, our, you know, we’re of the generation now, or at least I’m of the generation where my parents need support. They’re elderly, they’re facing Alzheimer’s, they’re facing, you know, a lot of, things that come along with aging, heart disease, and so on and so forth. They’re in their late 70s, 80s, 90s, right? So we become — we become caregivers. They’re people who have children who need a lot more support. That your spouse may need, or your partner may need support because they’re disabled or chronically ill.

We don’t think about caregivers, but caregivers tend to have depression, anxiety, back injuries. And they end up themselves, having trouble, working a full-time job on top of the duties of caregiving. So, we — we tend to overlook caregivers as a — as a category of people who can, sustain working in a newsroom full-time. And that’s, you know, that goes across the board in other industries, too. But so we… we in our organization do talk about caregivers. So… All of these people are underrepresented in journalism, tend to have trouble maintaining stable employment in the newsroom.

And then, when we look at the audience side, something that we talk about a lot in our organization is how do we reach people? When we look at news as a category. We know that, more people, about 56% of people, are now getting their news from social media at least some of the time. We know that most news is now online, at least on a website, that’s how people are doing it. When I was, you know, starting out in newspapers, of course, now I actually started out in newspapers, started out working at evening newspapers, so, I’m old. But… and I was the only woman in the newsroom sometimes. But, we know that newspapers tend to… news as a category, as of news sites, tend to have, on average, 58, 59 errors, accessibility errors, on their web page, per web page.

So, we’re looking at a particularly… they’re ranked pretty significantly as a category of web pages that have a high rate of accessibility errors, and that includes no alt text on pictures. Alt text is very important for people who use screen reader technology. They tend to have color contrast issues, so that’s for people who have low vision, for people who have vision issues with, color, blindness, So we’re looking at, a category of, of digital, of digital news that just isn’t meant for everybody, and that’s before we get to language issues. News has moved… when I was… when I was coming into news, we were taught to use language that was meant to reach the most people, make it, understandable for the most people, and now you go into an article, and everyone wants to use the 25-cent word, the biggest word we can. You know, it’s confusing, it’s not easier for people to understand. I promote what we call plain language, but people will often say to me, I don’t want to dumb down my news. I don’t want to, you know, the reporters will say, I don’t want to do that, and I’m saying it’s not dumbing down. It’s really appealing to more people. It’s appealing to a broader audience. It’s not, you know, it’s not, using these computerized AI grammar checkers or anything like that. It’s using the language of your community. It’s using context. It’s using, you know, explainers in the story.

Joan Esposito: I mean, one of the things I was taught repeatedly when I was in television news, write the way you talk. You know, it’s… otherwise, you know, this isn’t a white paper, this isn’t an academic presentation, this is one… and you know, when I… for… I spent about a decade doing media training. And especially, especially with doctors and lawyers. I would say to them, okay, you’re gonna be, you know, doing this interview, you’re gonna be questioned about this, or you’re gonna be making this speech about this. What is it that you want to say to people? And then or what is your answer to this question? And they would give me the answer, and then I would… it would be filled with jargon, and just go on at length, and I said… and I would say to them. So what you’re saying is, “It’s good to get up out of your chair and walk around.”

Onward, right. And they’d be like, well, well, I guess that’s what I’m saying. And I would say, “No. That’s what you’re saying.” I had a doctor once who came to me for media training, and he knew he was going to be interviewed by one of the local television stations. And he came to me because he said, “I don’t want this to be a one-off. I want this to go so well that they come back to me over and again, and that I become their person of expertise in this area.” And we worked for an hour or two, and again, it was just like, “Okay, okay, okay, I understand what you’re saying. How about this? People should wear blue shirts.”

“Right. Well, I guess that’s what I… I guess that’s what I’m saying, and I was like, no, that’s what you’re saying. And we worked, and we worked, and this… I’m telling you, Stacy, this never happens, but, like, a week later, I was at a charity event, sitting next to the reporter who had done the interview. And of course, you know, my participation in this was all very top secret. And I was just like, oh, oh, you, yeah, you asked that doctor on last week. And I was like, yeah, how did that go? And she looked at me, she goes, oh my god, he was so good. It was an amazing interview. And Stacy, that never happens, you know?

But it was just… it was just so random that I was seated next to her, and… and was able to get that kind of feedback. But… but you’re exactly right. It isn’t a question of looking dumb. It isn’t a question of showing off, it’s a question of communicating. And if there is a fancy word that is somehow so precisely what you’re trying to say, then… then go for it. But most of the time.

You want… the important thing is the communication, not, you know, not showing off how much jargon you know, or how great your vocabulary is.

Stacy Kess: Exactly. And so, we do training, we train news organizations to be more accessible, we train them on language, we train them on how to make their websites more accessible, we train them on how to, you know, make their newsrooms, more open to, you know, access… you know, to people, to different kinds of people, policies that make them, open to journalists with disabilities, and, you know, sometimes that’s adding a ramp, sometimes it’s adding the ability to be flexible on hours. You can’t be 9 to 5 for everybody. News never happened 9 to 5 in the first place, so why would, you know, why do we relegate, reporters to work 9 to 5.

Joan Esposito: Well, Stacy, we’ve got to take a break, but when we come back, you posted something recently about the results of a poll about whether or not people trust the news. I’m speaking to Stacey Kess, dissident… dissident editor at Equal Access Public Media. We’ll be right back after this. Don’t turn that dial. Dangerous mistake. Joan Esposito. I’m local and progressive. Turn right now on WCP20.

(Commercial break)

Joan Esposito: I’m speaking to Stacey Kess with the Equal Access Public Media Group. You can find her on Bluesky, it’s real easy to do. And while back, a week or so ago, I don’t know, you published a report that you had read that, in part, talked about people trusting the news. What did you find, Stacy?

Stacy Kess: So, this was the Economist YouGov poll, that they published just last month, November 21st through 24th. And they, polled, 1,600 U.S. adult citizens, and the… they asked a lot of questions, but the two that stuck out to me were trust in, were in the section Trust in Institutions. It was the third section of questions, and there were like, 100 questions in this, survey. And they were asked 15 questions, or 10, 10, 10 questions about 15 institutions. And they were asked about… Television news, and they were asked about newspapers. And the question was, how much confidence do you have in each of the following institutions? And it was just unique. Television news, and newspapers. And across the board, age, race, political affiliation, whether you called yourself a liberal, a progressive, a conservative, how you voted in the last election, whether you voted for Kamala Harris, whether you voted for the guy in the White House. It doesn’t matter. Across the board, Of these 1,677 individuals, trust was low. Very little was about 40%, very little in… overall in newspapers, and about 48% had very little trust in television news. And we can say, well, okay, but how many people, you know, silo themselves and only watch Fox News, and we know Fox News is, unfortunately, the number one cable news station in America. Why?

Joan Esposito: You got me. But, me too.

Stacy Kess: But… We know that, you know, CNN repeats everything on 15 minutes. Right? And that when there’s a disaster, they literally repeat on 15 minutes the same news, even when there’s no new news to repeat. And we know that… Television news tends to be very partisan. We know that, people have more trust in their local newspaper than they do in the national newspaper, so we know that New York Times, you know, whether you’re a progressive or you’re a conservative, you hate the New York Times. That’s across the board. Everybody hates the New York Times.

Joan Esposito: I hate the New York Times, too, Stacy.

Stacy Kess: Everybody hates the New York Times. It’s a fashionable thing to do, except everybody loves their cooking section. The recipes are fantastic. Washington Post, you know, I mean… It died in the daylight, not in darkness. I have friends who work there, I have friends who work there, and I’ve got friends who were laid off there it died in daylight, not in the darkness. The LA Times is owned by a man who likes to meddle in it. We know these things. I’m sorry, I’m just telling the truth. As everyone who knows me knows, I have no filter. I’m doing a very good job of not cussing on the radio, though.

Joan Esposito: You are! You’re doing a very good job. Stacy, I shouldn’t have asked you… I should have asked you this question sooner, because we are so out of time. I hope you will come back. Yes, I will. This is a really fascinating topic, and I would love to pursue it.

Stacy Kess: Yeah.

Joan Esposito: Great. Absolutely. What’s… I mentioned Blue Sky. What’s the best place, for people to find the organization?

Stacy Kess: It is on BlueSky at Equalaccesspublicmedia.org, and our website is equalaccesspublicmedia.org, so you can find us either way.