accessibility of web pages

Why is accessibility of web pages of concern to you as a journalist.

Web accessibility is an important aspect in considering online journalism. As journalists we learn that news and information must be accessible to all people of a society. Everyone has the right to information and therefore online journalism should make sure that its content does not alienated people because of literacy or technology. New media and online journalism should be accessed by all who are able to be on the internet and should not be hampered by lack of technology. Web accessibility guidelines provided by the W3Cs informs journalists how to make web pages accessible to all. An important aspect in making web pages accessible is by making content understandable and navigable. “This includes not only making the language clear and simple, but also providing understandable mechanisms for navigating within and between pages.” (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0)
Part of making web pages accessible is by providing “equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.” This means that the journalist will need to know the elements (such as XHTML) in order to create equivalent information. Accessibility also means doing the markup sheets correctly and coherently as “using markup improperly –not according to specification – hinders accessibility”.
When creating web pages the journalist also needs to keep in mind that people with disabilities also need to interact with the web page. In the markup language the journalist needs to “clarify natural language usage. When the content developers [the journalist] mark up natural language changes in a document, speech synthesisers and braille devices can automatically switch to the new language, making the document more accessible to multilingual users.”
Making web pages accessible to places where technology has not caught up poses another problem to journalists. This is particular to journalists working online in Africa. Journalists dealing with this issue need to “ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully…that pages are accessible even when newer technologies are not supported or turned off.”
Therefore when online journalists create their web pages they need to keep in mind web accessibility for all users, whether they are disabled or lack the supporting technology. Journalists who have a knowledge of markup language enables them to make their web pages more accessible.

Reference:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
http://moodle.ru.ac.za/mod/resource/view.php?id=8692