What you've missed if you aren't reading The Word:
• Accessibility as journalism's overlooked key to public trust
• Analysis of how the Pentagon's policy already started affecting reporters' work
• The progress media has and hasn't made on women's health issues.

Public media isn't a brand. It's an ethos. We chose the public media model because we think news is education, a right, and a public good.

A note from founder @stacykess.bsky.social.

youtu.be/1xPTXBo3HVY

Absolutely the worst people.

We're so broke that we're recycling fund drive videos from last year's winter fund drive. Remember this one? It's still one of our favorites.

And yes! You can still donate at www.equalaccesspublicmedia.org!

Hey! That's my voice asking you to save the journalists!

I swear I did not plan that our Style and Accessibility Guide colors would work so well with the colors of a certain company who is famous for pumpkin spice lattes.

It just worked out that way.

Me too! I have a list of things I'd fund/give endowments to if I won the Powerball or Megamillions. Once we buy a small flat here, we'd have plenty left over to give to all the orgs that need it!

Yes, yes, I'm only kidding. My intern? She's amazing. I cannot wait to teach her all the things. She's already done a local public radio internship, and she's top of her class. And somehow she came my way! Because we're the only journalism accessibility org!

Was I though?

Hmmmmm... do you happen to have a spare million dollars lying around to fund EAPM? Or have have found the key to getting my self-cloning experiment to work yet?

Either of those would be excellent...

...she says rubbing her hands together like Mr. Burns...

(I just told this poor college student that she's going to come out the other end of the internship as a middle-aged woman having a late mid-life crisis with two dogs and a cat and an anxiety problem...!)

Yes ma'am! I'm working on it.

I'd been waiting until it was real to say anything, but I also got an intern (who is here to learn all about running a news accessibility nonprofit) on-boarding, so I now officially have a mini-me. And I plan to teach her all the things. Or at least the good things.

So, while the end result is, for my own sake, I'm going to have to cut back on my hours — at least to a health 40 or 45 hours a week ... maybe 50 — this whole thing is really my mother's fault. And I'm not giving up on EAPM yet.

8/

But she also was active in politics and social justice. And that brought me into those movements young. Just giving a damn meant we could change the world!

7/

Like any good GenXer, we decided it's my mother's fault. See, my mom showed me early on that a little hard work and a lot of idealism could change a lot. She was a single mom with a meager salary.

6/

I said to my husband last night, why? Why didn't I just start small? Like a newsletter or something?

And he said, because you're not built like that.

5/

(And to be frank, most news websites aren't even AA compliant.) So I wrote this plan. Our org would show the way. Language, digital, HR (personnel, physical space, working conditions). We'd build ways to train the industry. We'd also build our own news outlets to lead.

4/

We invented, we created, we saw possibilities where others didn't. We saw solutions to problems people didn't even know existed.

So when I saw the accessibility problems beyond just "fix up your website to squeak by AA compliance" in news, I wanted to do something.

3/

When I started @equalaccesspublicmedia.org, I put all my GenXness into it.

Sure my generation makes for great jokes, but we're more than cynics. We, at one time, thought almost anything was possible. We got the name "slacker," but we were really dreaming.

2/

I had a good meltdown last night. I'm exhausted, and overworked. And I told my husband that I just can't keep going at this pace. And I yelled, and I cried.

And then, I talked it out.

1/

I hear you. But there's one of me. I work 80 hours a week. I missed this one. We have a budget of $900 left. Major media organizations with multi-million dollar budgets with many people also miss typos. I am very sorry that I missed this error in my sleep-deprived state. I'm doing the best I can.

The Word is back today to discuss accessibility as the key to rebuilding trust in news. Our reporter talks to @kattenbarge.bsky.social and @patrickmgarvin.bsky.social to learn more.

More reasons to donate:
Stacy needs her first paycheck in two years/a vacation/not to work 80 hours a week...

I think you're right.

Speaks to how tired I was when I edited this last night.