By: Nazim Ali
What is the Michigan Daily?
The Michigan Daily is the University of Michigan’s campus newspaper. It’s also the most popular local newspaper in the city of Ann Arbor. While the physical paper is printed weekly and distributed throughout the city and campus, the digital space is updated – daily! The Michigan Daily has a widespread reach via their digital space with page views averaging easily over 12,000 a day since the start of the school year.
Summary and Goals of The Project
My goal with this project is to objectively analyze how accessible the digital space (website, social media pages, and general content) of the Michigan Daily is. The idea is to see what things are being done well while also critiquing and pointing out where things could improve. The hope is to use this project as a framework for real change at the Daily.
As Things Currently Stand: Website and Social Media Accessibility Features
After doing some personal analysis using screen readers and asking more knowledgeable staffers at the Daily, the current standing in terms of accessibility is best put as inconsistent. While some graphics and cartoons do include alt-texts which are read out quite well on both instagram and the website, other pictures, often real photos, do not follow suit.
As an anonymous staffer mentioned, talks about digital accessibility have been emphasized by some and as a result “so much of our special editions, work fluidly with a screen reader and other assistive technologies”.
Other Accessibility Findings
While the content itself varies greatly, The Daily has an extensive and rigorous review process to make sure that what they are putting out can be digestible by readers, listeners, and viewers. The font and text are formatted in WordPress and do a fairly good job holding shape when zoomed in.
Some pieces do include heavier content and some videos feature strobe lights: in either case, trigger and seizure warnings are provided.
Finally, The Michigan Daily has a Youtube page and many of these videos include their own subtitles embedded within the video itself. Not everything is bleak!
Content analysis
Accessibility features aren’t the only way that digital content can be “accessible” and improved. A huge aspect of accessing a space is the desire to do so. What is pulling this reader to check out an article in the first place? Does the content itself seem inviting enough to be accessible?
In their mission statement, The Michigan Daily claims that they “strive for equitable coverage in our representation of all communities, identities and groups.” While the Daily well and truly does cover a wide variety of topics on campus, the disabled community seems to be neglected. A simple search of the word “disability” in their search bar reveals that only two columns in the entirety of 2023 have featured the word disability. In just this semester class alone, several campus events have been mentioned varying from fun to serious matters relating to disability culture and awareness. It seems that coverage isn’t so equitable.
Plan for the future
As mentioned prior, the foundation isn’t as bleak as it could be. That being said, there are a lot of areas for improvement. As Co-chair of Culture, Training and Inclusion at The Michigan Daily, I would like to make this one of our projects for the upcoming semester.
The first idea is to speak to the editors-in-chiefs of the Daily to discuss how we can set the precedence of accessibility in terms of alt-texts and more fluid screen reading. While retroaction is good, it’s also difficult. I believe it’s systemically better to make rules that should be followed to here on out.
The second idea is to stay in contact with Professor Yergeau and when it’s time to recruit for new hires, we can strategize how to increase diversity of staff. I believe that having more members of the disabled community on staff would only help the Daily. Not only in terms of equitable coverage, but also in terms of the other wonderful ideas they could bring. As Ginsburg et al mentioned in the piece for Somatosphere, “building a world that welcomes disabled people benefits everybody” (Ginsburg et al).
Works Cited
Ginsburg, Faye, et al. “From Quality of Life to Disability Justice: Imagining a Post-Covid Future.” Somatosphere, 15 June 2020, somatosphere.com/2020/from-quality-of-life-to-disability-justice.html/.
Grand, Sophie. “Michigan Daily 12/1/21 Win over Ohio State Cover” Michigan Daily, 1/12/2021, https://i0.wp.com/www.michigandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/coverrrrrrrr.jpg?fit=1785%2C1218&ssl=1
