Nieman Lab.
Predictions for
Journalism, 2025.
As we stumble into 2025, the conversation around accessibility in journalism is more relevant than ever. As news organizations try to engage wider and more diverse communities, accessible content isn’t just a moral imperative — it’s also a practical one.
Yet many newsrooms still overlook even the most basic accessibility elements of publishing, even though most require a relatively low lift and can have a disproportionately high impact.
The good news is that publishers don’t have to jump straight into the deep end to get started. One easy starting point is to simply provide accurate, human-edited transcripts for video and multimedia content they put out. This basic first step makes a huge difference and ensures that those with hearing impairments — and the growing population of people who simply enjoy consuming content with subtitles on — can access and enjoy your work.
It’s the same thing for alt text, one of the easiest accessibility enhancements out there. Adding it to images, along with descriptive text for published or hosted web content, is essential for visually impaired users who rely on screen readers. Alt text not only makes the content accessible but also enhances search engine optimization and improves the newsroom’s reach. It also just makes your news organization look like you have your shit together.
As I’ve said before, accessibility isn’t just about serving people with disabilities — though that should be front and center in these conversations. It’s also about improving the overall user experience for everyone.
Screen readers, immersive readers, and other accessibility-first features that provide audio narration alongside text have become increasingly popular among users without disabilities, and I expect that trend to continue into 2025 and beyond. These tools offer an enhanced, flexible way to consume content, whether someone is multitasking, driving, or simply prefers an audio component to help improve reading comprehension.
One of the most common excuses for neglecting accessibility is an apparent lack of time or resources. However, advancements in AI tools — I know, I also cringe when someone brings up AI these days, but bear with me for a minute — can actually help get you started.
(I can’t stress enough that these tools on their own are trash. There’s no getting around it. They just don’t have the juice or the cultural and colloquial capacity to be effective on their own. But when used as a tool or in an assistive capacity alongside an actual human, they’re not completely useless.)
Most of us have already used or experimented with transcription tools like Otter, Descript, Whisper, Rev, and others. If you’ve used these tools before, you know how useful they can (sometimes) be for capturing the bulk of the conversation and turning it into a searchable, synced transcript. Yes, you still have to go through and edit transcripts for accuracy, correct spellings of names and places, and other unique or uncommon words. But if accuracy and fidelity are too much to ask of you and your news organization, you might be in the wrong business anyway.
When used properly, these tools can serve as a quick and valuable starting point for most video and audio transcripts. Meanwhile, platforms like WordPress include built-in prompts for alt text creation and tools to help you generate them. I’ve even loaded a series of alt text and descriptive text guides and resources into a custom GPT (like this one) or a Claude Project, along with a few custom instructions and guidelines, to create tools that provide alt-text first drafts for images and graphics meant for my own social media posts and the Center for Cooperative Media’s various websites.
Again, they’re not perfect, and they still lack the intuition, nuance, and insight of an actual human. But as long as you pair these tools with human oversight, they can help streamline the process, save you time, and improve the quality and potential reach of your work.
Starting with these simple first steps, newsrooms can open their doors to millions of potential new readers and viewers who were previously excluded and treated as an afterthought (at best). After all, why would you want to exclude the nearly 40% of American adults who reported some form of disability? Making content accessible isn’t a niche accommodation or something to pat yourself on the back for — it’s a necessary, simple, and strategic move that demonstrates respect for your community and a commitment to actual diversity and inclusion.
Accessibility is the future of journalism. Newsrooms that embrace these practices now are setting themselves and their staff up to not only meet the needs of their current audiences but are also positioning themselves as leaders in ethical, inclusive media for years to come.
Download/listen to the audio version of this article.
Joe Amditis is associate director of operations at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.
As we stumble into 2025, the conversation around accessibility in journalism is more relevant than ever. As news organizations try to engage wider and more diverse communities, accessible content isn’t just a moral imperative — it’s also a practical one.
Yet many newsrooms still overlook even the most basic accessibility elements of publishing, even though most require a relatively low lift and can have a disproportionately high impact.
The good news is that publishers don’t have to jump straight into the deep end to get started. One easy starting point is to simply provide accurate, human-edited transcripts for video and multimedia content they put out. This basic first step makes a huge difference and ensures that those with hearing impairments — and the growing population of people who simply enjoy consuming content with subtitles on — can access and enjoy your work.
It’s the same thing for alt text, one of the easiest accessibility enhancements out there. Adding it to images, along with descriptive text for published or hosted web content, is essential for visually impaired users who rely on screen readers. Alt text not only makes the content accessible but also enhances search engine optimization and improves the newsroom’s reach. It also just makes your news organization look like you have your shit together.
As I’ve said before, accessibility isn’t just about serving people with disabilities — though that should be front and center in these conversations. It’s also about improving the overall user experience for everyone.
Screen readers, immersive readers, and other accessibility-first features that provide audio narration alongside text have become increasingly popular among users without disabilities, and I expect that trend to continue into 2025 and beyond. These tools offer an enhanced, flexible way to consume content, whether someone is multitasking, driving, or simply prefers an audio component to help improve reading comprehension.
One of the most common excuses for neglecting accessibility is an apparent lack of time or resources. However, advancements in AI tools — I know, I also cringe when someone brings up AI these days, but bear with me for a minute — can actually help get you started.
(I can’t stress enough that these tools on their own are trash. There’s no getting around it. They just don’t have the juice or the cultural and colloquial capacity to be effective on their own. But when used as a tool or in an assistive capacity alongside an actual human, they’re not completely useless.)
Most of us have already used or experimented with transcription tools like Otter, Descript, Whisper, Rev, and others. If you’ve used these tools before, you know how useful they can (sometimes) be for capturing the bulk of the conversation and turning it into a searchable, synced transcript. Yes, you still have to go through and edit transcripts for accuracy, correct spellings of names and places, and other unique or uncommon words. But if accuracy and fidelity are too much to ask of you and your news organization, you might be in the wrong business anyway.
When used properly, these tools can serve as a quick and valuable starting point for most video and audio transcripts. Meanwhile, platforms like WordPress include built-in prompts for alt text creation and tools to help you generate them. I’ve even loaded a series of alt text and descriptive text guides and resources into a custom GPT (like this one) or a Claude Project, along with a few custom instructions and guidelines, to create tools that provide alt-text first drafts for images and graphics meant for my own social media posts and the Center for Cooperative Media’s various websites.
Again, they’re not perfect, and they still lack the intuition, nuance, and insight of an actual human. But as long as you pair these tools with human oversight, they can help streamline the process, save you time, and improve the quality and potential reach of your work.
Starting with these simple first steps, newsrooms can open their doors to millions of potential new readers and viewers who were previously excluded and treated as an afterthought (at best). After all, why would you want to exclude the nearly 40% of American adults who reported some form of disability? Making content accessible isn’t a niche accommodation or something to pat yourself on the back for — it’s a necessary, simple, and strategic move that demonstrates respect for your community and a commitment to actual diversity and inclusion.
Accessibility is the future of journalism. Newsrooms that embrace these practices now are setting themselves and their staff up to not only meet the needs of their current audiences but are also positioning themselves as leaders in ethical, inclusive media for years to come.
Download/listen to the audio version of this article.
Joe Amditis is associate director of operations at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.
