Accessibility in journalism needs funding too

Nonprofit journalism funders must put money behind removing barriers for the disabled community

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A couple of weeks ago, I asked a question in a journalism Slack. Could anyone name a time that nonprofit journalism funders — those big grant-makers that bring the money that drives nonprofit journalism from NPR to the small local papers — has put money behind accessibility?

I was looking specifically for funding accessibility positions at news outlets, or accessibility training programs, or accessibility news innovation. I mean, WGBH was instrumental in making close captioning in broadcasting and other visual media possible. And they continue to be. But there’s more than closed captioning.

Of course, people were quick to point out times grant-makers had funded disability reporting positions.

A couple of university fellowships were named, but those turned out to be about disability inclusion.

I reached out to a friend in the accessibility space. We were able to name three university fellowships: two that were about disability inclusion, and one that would have been great for accessibility except that it forgot the accessibility part.

Don’t get me wrong. Inclusion is great! Including disabled people in your articles or reporting on disability is important.

But neither including disabled voices in your reporting or covering disability topics equates to accessibility.

Inclusion is about being welcoming and opening. Accessibility is about removing the barriers to get there. Your news outlet can have a disability beat without being accessible. You can include disabled people in your reporting without being accessible to disabled reporters in your newsroom.

I asked the Equal Access Public Media director on the board who is in charge of grant funding. She’s been working in nonprofits and working as a grant professional for years, and so she had to know of at least one, right? The mission of EAPM is to make journalism and news more accessible. It also publishes this magazine.

If it’s happened before now, we’d know about it, she texted back.

It’s the year 2026, and I can’t find evidence of accessibility nonprofit funding in journalism.

Here’s why that’s a problem:

• 1 in 5 American adults have trouble seeing, even when wearing glasses or contact lenses, are blind, or unable to see at all.
• 1 in 100 American adults is deaf, hard of hearing, or has other serious difficulty with hearing.
• Nearly 1 in 100 American adults has a cognitive disability, meaning that because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, a person has serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.

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When it comes to getting news, we don’t factor this in. We put out the news for nondisabled people. News is now most likely to come in a digital format. Our audiences get it from your website, from a link on social media, or from their inboxes.

But our websites and social media isn’t meeting the needs of the people who use alternatives to a mouse. They aren’t meeting the needs of the people who need plain language or better explanations.

Most often, news outlets are forgetting to make sure images have alt text and to check to make sure color contrast is appropriate. Other simple measures are that their audio and video has closed captioning and transcripts.

It all sounds so simple, but that’s where the funding comes in. It takes someone like me, who is trained in accessibility, to make sure it happens.

To be sure, for-profit media faces challenges too. I recently chatted with the accessibility coordinator at a for-profit paper who was about to take some time away from work. Their big concern? How would accessibility continue while they were out. You see, they are the only person in their position on the editorial side.

Journalism funders should be backing more of these positions so that it’s not just one person on staff carrying the entire accessibility load.

But we also need to be training everyone on staff to meet the moment. And that takes funding, too.

How do I know? I founded and run EAPM , which offers accessibility training that’s built for journalists and journalism outlets.

The reality is we’re missing up to 1 in 4 people — that’s how many people identify as disabled — with our news until we start putting money into accessibility.

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Stacy Kess is the chief of editorial for Equal Access Public Media. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at papers across the U.S. Find her on Bluesky at @stacykess.

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