November 2026

It’s not goodbye; it’s ‘see you later’

Dear friend, 

I am writing to you with a lot of mixed feelings.

This organization officially filed our articles of incorporation in Nov. of 2023. This month, I will file to dissolve the organization.

In the three years since founding this organization on the idea that the U.S. journalism industry needed to more accessible both inside the field and in the news we produce so that the audience who uses adaptive technology such as screen reader software, closed captioning, or needs plain language to understand the information, we have trained journalists, built a style and accessibility guide, surveyed journalists, produced a magazine about accessibility in journalism, and talked with hundreds of experts around the world in everything from how to use Easy English in news to DeafBlind experiences.

Sadly, broad support from disability organizations and the accessibility community for our work never materialized. And although we worked hard to spread our message and make partnerships in the journalism industry, we could not make a dent in a moment when news outlets are closing and many journalists are moving from newsrooms to newsletters.

In all of that, financial support never reached a level that allowed us to build beyond an all volunteer effort — including my full-time effort. We applied repeatedly for grant funding, even meeting early on with large foundations. Unfortunately, many wanted us to pivot to be more focused on creating news about disability issues rather than making publications more accessible both inside and out.

We stuck to our guns, and perhaps that cost us. Or, as several people have told me, perhaps we were just ahead of our time.

This week, I asked the board and COO to resign as I wind down the organization. I will work with our fiscal sponsor, the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation, to fulfill our outstanding commitments.

I want to assure our supporters this: This is only the end of the organization, not the end of the ideas we set forth.

We created a standard for how alt text should be written for news photos. We created a playbook for how to view accessibility in the U.S. journalism industry. We said news and accessibility should be synonymous, and we still believe that. Those ideas will live on with the people we train, with our supporters, and with our volunteers.

Every person who poured their heart, soul, and money into this organization should take a bow because we all worked so hard, and this wasn’t in vain. It just simply wasn’t our time.

So rather than say goodbye, let’s say, “See you later.”

With so much love and appreciation,

Stacy Kess
Founder
Organization for Accessible Journalism