Today I read, in the alt text for a chart on a local news site, that the NYC new COVID case count has declined steadily since April 26 and continues that trend. That can't be right, I thought. So I embossed the graphic and confirmed my intuition: this claim was false.

When I emboss a chart like this, the text is too small to read, and colors aren't conveyed. (Graphics designed for tactile are different). But with a visual interpreter providing context, I found our case rate, jaggedly spiking up for weeks to a point we've avoided since May.

I reported the error, which was caused by a journalist forgetting to edit critical parts of a pasted boilerplate description of the chart. A correction or acknowledgment did not appear: that practice must not apply when only Blind people are misled.

Writing alt text for infographics warrants diligence and integrity as much as graphics do. I believed a false claim printed daily for weeks, because I trusted the source. Somewhere a journalist in a rush, filling that box like it's a trash can, broke that trust.

I won't name the news site, because they're one of the few who provide any meaningful description of charts at all. If I upset them, they could just stop alt texting altogether. The asymmetry of power is profound and compels my discretion. This is image poverty.