[Journalists] Blindness doesn't diminish student editor's nose for news

[David Andrews]

>
>The following article about our own Rachel Becker appeared in today's Des
>Moines Register. Congratulations, Rachel!!!!!
>
>Michael Barber, President, National Federation of the Blind of Iowa
>
>
>
>Storm Lake, Ia. -- The handcuffs clinked. Rachel Becker knew that much.
>
>She was sitting in the courtroom beside Dan Swanson, the reporter she
>shadowed for her newspaper internship.
>
>"Two guys just walked in in handcuffs," she told him.
>
>Swanson turned to her.
>
>"How would you know that?" he asked.
>
>"I might not know what they look like, but I could tell they were there. The
>chains made a noise," Becker would later recall. "A lot of people think
>blind people have super-hearing, but they don't.
>
>Advertisement<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/graphics/adlabel_horz.gif>
>
><
><http://gcirm.dmregister.gcion.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/ia-desmoines.d
>esmoinesregister.com/news/article.htm/1405434837/ArticleFlex_1/OasDefault/Ke
>llyScottandMadison_2547/DesMoines_300x250.jpg/306364383165343734363765383230
>30>
>http://gcirm.dmregister.gcion.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/ia-desmoines.de
>smoinesregister.com/news/article.htm/1405434837/ArticleFlex_1/OasDefault/Kel
>lyScottandMadison_2547/DesMoines_300x250.jpg/3063643831653437343637653832303
>0> <
><http://gcirm.dmregister.gcion.com/RealMedia/.ads/adstream_lx.ads/ia-desmoin
>es.desmoinesregister.com/news/article.htm/1405434837/ArticleFlex_1/OasDefaul
>t/KellyScottandMadison_2547/DesMoines_300x250.jpg/30636438316534373436376538
>323030?_RM_EMPTY_>
>http://gcirm.dmregister.gcion.com/RealMedia/.ads/adstream_lx.ads/ia-desmoine
>s.desmoinesregister.com/news/article.htm/1405434837/ArticleFlex_1/OasDefault
>/KellyScottandMadison_2547/DesMoines_300x250.jpg/306364383165343734363765383
>23030?_RM_EMPTY_>
>
>"They just know how to use it."
>
>Becker, 21, is in her third year at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake,
>where she dreams of a job with a big city newspaper, even though she will
>never see the final product of her work.
>
>"If you were to close your eyes and hold a newspaper, your image of it would
>be different than mine," she said recently. "I have to imagine what it looks
>like."
>
>Becker was born blind. She grew up painting mental images of what she heard
>on the television news. Now, she helps edit the Tack, Buena Vista's campus
>newspaper. She has an aspiring journalist's vision, but it's first-year
>student and co-editor Carly Evans who provides her sight. In the newsroom,
>she sees what Becker can't.
>
>"Talking to her, I would never guess that she couldn't see any of the stuff
>because she knows exactly what would be best going where," Evans said.
>
>Becker laughs.
>
>"Not exactly," she said. "I remember last semester, I would suggest graphic
>ideas and someone would say, 'Well, no.' "
>
>The two friends and colleagues play to each other's strengths. Becker edits
>stories turned in by the student staff writers; she leaves the design work
>to Evans.
>
>"Obviously, the photo thing is not my cup of tea," Becker joked.
>
>She explains her career choice in a simple, matter-of-fact style that would
>please any editor: "I like to write, and I like to know what's going on. Put
>that together and you have journalism."
>
>Becker's notes are in Braille. She writes with a stylus on a thin, two-sided
>plate that goes around a single sheet of paper. Her computer is equipped
>with a special audio program that turns text into speech. The technology
>helps her do the job, but it poses its own challenges.
>
>"My biggest pet peeve is when people put periods instead of commas before
>their quotes," she said.
>
>Jason Jacobs, a second-year media studies major and the sports editor for
>the Tack, said he admires Becker because "she goes out there and takes
>risks."
>
>"Hey Jason: Do you have those stats on how many tickets were sold at the
>basketball game?" Becker called from across the newsroom recently. "We want
>to do a graphic with them."
>
>"Yeah, I'll get them," he told her, then said to a visitor: "Rachel just
>keeps everyone here on their toes."
>
>Becker knows that her readers will want those statistics, just as she knew
>readers of the Nebraska City News-Press would want to know more about those
>two men who were led away in handcuffs that day at the Otto County, Neb.,
>courthouse.
>
>Their handcuffs clinked. She knew that much.
>
>Becker will graduate in December. When she applied for her next internship
>-- maybe in Omaha; possibly in Washington D.C. -- she included her story
>clips and a resume that said she is a tutor in Buena Vista's writing center
>and a member of the choir. There's no mention of her blindness. There rarely
>is.
>
>"If they see that, they might get nervous. If they ask me, I'll tell them,
>but I want it to be about my resume and clips, not the fact that I can't
>see," she said.
>
>The odds might seem long, but Becker sees her future in big-time journalism.
>There's just no room in her story for blindness.
>
>"Sometimes, I wish I could do more than I can, but you do the best with what
>you have," she said. "I just pretend it doesn't exist, but I guess it is
>good to address it and be, like, 'Yeah, I can't see. It's cool though.' "
>
>Reporter Molly Hottle can be reached at (515) 284-8065 or mhottle at dmreg.com