For the Record Allowed just one question for President George H . W . Bush during a private meeting with media , Jones went off-script with the opportunity . Read her question and the president ’ s response on the official transcripts at TRITONMAG . COM / ADA
“ It was all on carbon‐based type ,” she remembers . “ If you touched it the words would smear , so we had to use hairspray to stabilize it . So much of the process was manual ; publishing was truly hands‐on in those days .”
But Mainstream was far more than words on paper . In the days before email , the magazine was an important means of organizing and informing the public when the fight for disability rights was at a fever pitch from the ’ 70s through the ’ 90s . “ Our magazine was a connection for people to be aware and get involved ,” says Jones . “ We created some of the change and we kept the movement moving .” Jones admits there was a blurry line in being a disability rights journalist and disability rights activist ; during a time when legislation was being passed yet there was little enforcement to see it through , covering the many sit‐ins , marches and protests eventually meant participating in them as well .
Jones would eventually become publisher of Mainstream , and she freely highlights the role her education played in running every aspect of the publication . “ Revelle teaches you to be a renaissance scholar ,” Jones says . “ When you ’ re a small publisher within a staff of only five , you have to be able to edit , hire and fire , do the books , understand advertising and sales and think of stories people would be interested in reading about . I needed the skills to keep all those balls in the air , and the Revelle renaissance philosophy was important in prepping me to do that .”
As Mainstream ’ s publisher , Jones was a key influencer of not only public opinion , but public policy . Leading up to the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act ( ADA ), Jones and other disability journalists were invited to interview then President George H . W . Bush . With each reporter allowed just one question , Jones went off-script from a prepared question to instead ask about improving collaboration between government agencies with regards to disability issues . Hers was one of the only questions to get a significant response from the president , and the result four years later was a book‐length report titled Enabling America . “ They had gone through all the committee work , all the research , and had come out with the book . That was the answer to my question .”
36 TRITON | SPRING 2016