Forging a Path Toward Accessibility: Rethinking How We Collect and Share Stories

Abstract

In a meditation on the future of journalism and media history—through the lens of a closer re-examination of methodology—this essay challenges journalism historians to rethink how they collect and share stories in an increasingly digital world, especially regarding oral history interviewing. By pushing back on assumptions and centering access, this essay argues for reassessing whose stories get told and who is able to tell stories. It also provides a primer on conducting oral histories remotely.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For resources on the Times’ sex discrimination lawsuit, see, Nan Robertson, The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and the New York Times (New York: Random House, 1992); Marama Whyte, “‘The Worst Divorce Case That Ever Happened’: The New York Times Women’s Caucus and Workplace Feminism,” Modern American History 3, no. 2–3 (November 2020): 153–74; Lynn Povich, The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012).

2 Susan Geiger, “What’s So Feminist About Doing Women’s Oral History?” Journal of Women’s History 2, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 169–82.

3 Eva Surovell, “Federal Covid Relief is Ending. Connecticut’s Public Colleges Could Face Big Cuts,” Chronical of Higher Education, February 14, 2023, https://www.chronicle.com/article/federal-covid-relief-is-ending-connecticuts-public-colleges-could-face-big-cuts.

4 Archiving Oral History: Manual of Best Practices, Oral History Association, October 2019, https://www.oralhistory.org/archives-principles-and-best-practices-complete-manual/.

5 Email to the author, [email protected], March 24, 2021.

6 Tatyana Deryugina, Olga Shurchkov, and Jenna E. Stearns, “COVID-19 Disruptions Disproportionately Affect Female Academics,” National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2021, https://doi.org/10.3386/w28360.

7 Leslie Davis and Richard Fry, “College Faculty Have Become More Racially and Ethnically Diverse, but Remain Far Less so than Students,” Pew Research Center, July 31, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/31/us-college-faculty-student-diversity/.

8 Kristen Hare, “The Essential Workers,” Poynter, March 2, 2021, https://www.poynter.org/the-essential-workers/.

9 “Centers and Collections,” Oral History Association, n.d., https://www.oralhistory.org/centers-and-collections/.

10 “The Decision to Emigrate,” Jewish Women’s Archive, https://jwa.org/communitystories/sovietjewry/themes/decision-to-emigrate.

11 Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II, digital archive, https://www.homefrontheroines.com/.

12 Serenity Sutherland, Digital Media Review, “Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of WWII,” American Journalism 38, no. 4 (October 2, 2021): 513–15.

13 “Southern Oral History Program Digital Archives,” UNC Center for the Study of the American South, n.d., https://sohp.org/oral-history-interviews/.

14 John Province, “Walt Disney’s First Star: The Virginia Davis Interview,” Hogan’s Alley, https://www.hoganmag.com/blog/walt-disneys-first-starthe-virginia-davis-interview (accessed August 15, 2009).

15 Archiving Oral History: Manual of Best Practices, Oral History Association, October 2019, https://www.oralhistory.org/archives-principles-and-best-practices-complete-manual/.

16 Remote Interviewing Resources, Oral History Association, August 27, 2020, https://www.oralhistory.org/remote-interviewing-resources/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley Walter

Ashley Walter is an assistant professor at Saint Louis University. An expert in women’s media history with a focus on women’s labor, Walter’s work has been published in Journalism History, American Journalism, and The Journal of Magazine Media. Her co-authored book with Ford Risley, How America Gets the News: A History of U.S. Journalism, will be out in April 2024.