Editorial – From the Outside Looking In
As I mentioned in the previous letter from the editor, I wanted to include an article about my experiences with the magazine so far. I suppose that the best place to start, as with most stories, is at the beginning.
I was asked to become the new editor of the magazine by the president of the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, the governing body of the publishing company. I had worked on various other unrelated projects with her before and she felt that I would be a good fit for the magazine because I am a decent writer, but also because I could offer a new perspective; that of someone new to the blind community and looking forward to learning as much as I could. It was a fresh start, and I wasn’t handed the reigns from any predecessor. I had very few things at my disposal to reference and, for the most part, the rest was up to me to figure out.
I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a bit overwhelming at first. But being 24 years old at the time and having an opportunity like this handed to me, I wasn’t about to let it pass me by. Instead of tiptoeing around the pool, so to speak, I jumped right in. My first real exposure to you readers was clicking through your emails and gaining a familiarity with the types of questions I would be asked, the problems that came up from time to time, and the relationships that had been fostered with the previous staff members. To me, the latter was the most important. While questions and problems represented the nut and bolt operations of the magazine, the reader-editor relationship is what is truly important. You are my audience and it is my duty to not only work for you, to entertain you, but to also work with you. It is, after all, your magazine.
As my plans for the magazine developed through December and early January, I was excited to release my first weekly magazine. When I did so on January 18, I nervously waited for my first comments from readers. I expected that there would be problems at the start, but I had worked hard to find some interesting material to fill the magazine with and hoped that you all would really enjoy reading it.
I’m going to digress for just a moment and highlight the biggest challenge that I was met with when I first began my work here with you. I was an outsider looking in. I was a sighted person, with no prior experience within the blind community at all. I didn’t know a screen reader from a Victor reader. I couldn’t tell you the difference between the NFB and the NBP, or the NLS. Most of my knowledge about the blind came from recalling my driver’s test, when they asked what it meant if someone was walking with a white cane. I also knew not to touch service dogs, though I have no recollection of where I learned that. So I had to make a choice: go into it scared, or go into it scared, but with a lot more know-how behind me so I could get by while I continued to learn. I was determined to reduce my outsider status to at least that of a well-informed visitor.
Now, back to that first magazine. In retrospect, it was quite awful. Not so much the content, but the way it was presented. The format of the magazine needed polishing and purpose. The first version was without a proper heading and navigation symbols. The special notices and pen pals sections were nearly unreadable for anyone using a screen reader. I worked hard to find interesting topics, but the writing was hidden behind so many formatting faults that any redeeming qualities were rendered moot. It was a magazine for the blind created by a sighted person who didn’t know any better.
As I saw the first comments come in, my heart sank. Needless to say, they weren’t very positive, and to be honest, I don’t blame them. Looking at that first magazine now, I’m both proud of how far it’s come in such a short time and ashamed that my first magazine revealed my ignorance of the needs of my audience so vividly. While the comments were a mixture of brutal jabs and sadness, I soon found that many of them were issued with a mission of constructive criticism. Many recommended things like a proper heading, and navigation symbols. Leaving out the proper heading was a rookie mistake on my part, but I would have never thought of the ## navigation symbol. When its purpose was explained to me, it made perfect sense and such a simple change made the magazine so much more user friendly. Other comments came in letting me know that odd square symbols were showing up in the text. While it took me weeks to figure out what was going on, I was able to fix it with their help. Each week they told me where they were popping up.
With all of the help I received in the first week, I was able to completely reformat the magazine and resend a proper copy later that week with a full heading and navigation symbols. I felt that while it was my job to make it right, everyone was working to make it better and teaming up with people to make it happen was a great experience.
As time went on, the negative comments also turned into constructive criticism and I could tell that even those who were the most upset about the format changes had come around and were enjoying the magazine every week. The addition of my feature writers is something that I’m sure helped them come back to the magazine a lot quicker, too. Even with all of the accessible formatting in the world implemented in this magazine, it would still be a magazine for the blind written by a sighted person if it weren’t for them. As I said before, this is your magazine. It needs to have perspectives given by other blind and visually impaired writers to make it a valuable publication for you. For my part, I really enjoy discovering a few articles each week and including them at the end, but the best part of my job is reading what they’ve submitted and getting a fantastic insight into the blind community.
You are all very inspiring, and I don’t mean that in a patronizing, look at all the cool things you can do, kind of way, either. I mean that your attitudes about life are really positive and vision be damned, you’re going to live you’re life as anyone else does. I’ve never experienced vision loss, but if I do, I hope I can live with it with the strength and positivity that you all have.
So, as someone who used to be a total outsider to this wonderful community I’ve found myself immersed in, I’d like to say thank you for everything that you’ve taught me, and for welcoming me in even though things started out pretty rocky. It’s an honor to work with and for all of you and I’m looking forward to continuing this for a long time.