How DeafMonitor is growing

The Advocacy hub becomes a legislative newsroom

The Advocacy hub now reads like a living newsroom for Deaf legislative coverage. The latest news and ASL video updates from the National Association of the Deaf sit at the top, the most recent state-focused advocacy stories are mapped to the states they affect, and a plain-language summary sketches the current legislative landscape with links back to the original reporting. A companion card surfaces the NAD's stated priorities and recent wins, drawn from its own posts.

• NAD news and captioned ASL video, front and center
• The latest advocacy news mapped to each state
• A plain-language summary of the legislative landscape, with sources to verify
• The NAD's stated priorities and recent accomplishments

Meet Moni, DeafMonitor's AI assistant

Moni arrives on every page. DeafMonitor's AI assistant lives in the top navigation and opens a side panel that searches the news archive, the Deaf World Wiki, the Library, events, and jobs, and answers questions about the Deaf world in plain language with linked sources. Moni is included with every account: create a free account to start asking.

Team schedules now appear on the scoreboard automatically

Upcoming games from Deaf schools and colleges now flow onto the Huddle scoreboard on their own, so /scores stays current between tournaments instead of waiting for someone to enter every game by hand. See a wrong opponent, date, or score? A new flag on any game lets anyone report it for a quick fix, and teams can still claim their page to run and correct their own schedule.

• Deaf school and college schedules added automatically
• A flag on every game to report a wrong detail
• Teams can claim their page to correct their own schedule

Member profiles personalize your feed

Members can now set up an optional profile at /welcome: pick the topics you care about, the sign languages you use, and your privacy defaults. Choose interests and DeafMonitor gently prioritizes those topics in your news and perspectives feeds, and can suggest members you have things in common with. Every field is optional, everything can be changed from your dashboard, and your privacy settings decide who sees what.

• A two-minute setup at /welcome: identity, sign languages, location, interests, and privacy defaults, with skip on every step
• Feeds gently prioritize your chosen topics without hiding the rest of the day's news
• Privacy defaults are members-only visibility; the member directory and direct messages are opt-in choices you control

The Daily Briefing arrives

DeafMonitor now publishes a Daily Briefing at /briefing: today's top Deaf community stories, ranked and recapped in one place, with live keyword monitoring across the coverage DeafMonitor tracks. It distills the same curated feed as the homepage into a single quick read.

DeafMonitor covered DeafBlind Awareness Week 2026

DeafBlind Awareness Week runs June 25 through July 1, observed each year around Helen Keller's birthday on June 27. DeafMonitor published an in-depth editorial on what DeafBlindness is, why the week matters, and what was happening in the community in 2026, including virtual events from the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults. The editorial is available in the DeafMonitor news archive.

Sellers can now open a shop on DeafMonitor

The DeafMonitor marketplace opens to Deaf sellers. Any member can now apply to open a shop, list items, and reach buyers across the Deaf community. A plain-English Seller Agreement at /seller-agreement covers the terms, and a 5% platform fee keeps the marketplace sustainable.

• A Seller Agreement at /seller-agreement lays out what you can list, the 5% platform fee, and how disputes are handled
• A Become a Seller entry point on /shop connects aspiring sellers to the onboarding flow
• All listings are reviewed before they go live

Follow DeafMonitor by RSS

DeafMonitor now publishes a standard RSS feed of the newest stories at /stories/feed.xml, so you can follow Deaf-relevant news in whatever reader you already use. Each item links back to the full story on DeafMonitor, with its original source credited.

DeafMonitor Huddle - the Deaf sports scoreboard goes live

Deaf sports scores used to vanish into photos of paper brackets. Now they have a home. Huddle brings live and final scores from Deaf schools, colleges, and grassroots tournaments to /scores - and gives every organizer the free tools to put their own games on the board. The huddle was invented at Gallaudet in 1894 to keep signs out of the other team's view. This one is for everyone.

• A live scoreboard at /scores - winners bold, losers dimmed, periods ticking, with a season archive for Pro members
• Free scoring tools for every Deaf sports organization, always: paste a whole schedule from a spreadsheet, print a QR sheet per court, and volunteers scan to score - no accounts, no downloads
• Tournaments connect to the community events calendar with one checkbox, and scores appear on /sports and /scores within 30 seconds of every tap
• The DeafMonitor Huddle iPhone app - live scores, calendar, news, and courtside scoring with offline sync - is on its way to the App Store

Deaf on Screen opens at /screen

Lights. Camera. Captions. A shelf-style showcase of the films, TV series, and documentaries where Deaf actors, characters, and stories took the screen — from Johnny Belinda in 1948 to Deaf President Now! Pull any poster off the shelf for a synopsis, who to watch for, and our take.

• Three browsable shelves — The Big Screen, The Binge Shelf, and The Real Reel — with 31 titles and 8 Academy Awards between them
• The Marquee: a row honoring 14 Deaf performers and creators, from Marlee Matlin to Kaylee Hottle
• Every title and name verified against IMDb, our authority source for the shelf
• Spotted something missing? Signed-in members can suggest titles and people — every suggestion gets reviewed

The Deaf Arts Gallery opens

A new wall for Deaf art launches at /gallery, opening with public-domain masterworks by Deaf artists: Granville Redmond's luminous California landscapes, Douglas Tilden's bronzes, and John Brewster Jr.'s early American portraits. Click any piece to view it large, with full credit to its source. And it is built to grow, so artists from across the Deaf community can add their own work.

• A click-to-enlarge viewer that shows each artwork at full resolution
• Curated public-domain works by Deaf masters, each credited to its source
• Open submissions for Deaf, DeafBlind, late-deafened, hard-of-hearing, and CODA artists, with a free account
• Every submission reviewed before it joins the wall

A two-sided creator directory

The Creators directory grows into a two-sided space — a home for Deaf creators to be discovered and a place for brands to find them. The page now leads with the community's combined reach, spotlights a featured creator, and ranks talent in a few honest ways so the right collaborators are easy to find.

• Ranking rails — Top by reach, Most engaged, and Open to collaborations
• Richer creator profiles with sharing, open-to-collaboration status, and a mobile-friendly contact bar
• A Profile Strength meter in the creator dashboard to help creators complete their page
• Brand outreach tools for signed-in members, with every creator's profile staying fully public

Browse the newest openings at a glance

The Deaf-friendly job board now opens with a Just Added carousel that spotlights the most recent postings, so you can scan the latest opportunities the moment they land — and page through every active listing with a new Load more control.

• A Just Added carousel of the most recently posted jobs
• Load more browsing across the full board, with the true job count always in view

The Deaf World — a community wiki

A living encyclopedia of Deaf life launches at /wiki — culture, history, sign languages, schools, laws, notable figures, art, sports, technology, and the community today. Built by and for the Deaf community, it is designed to grow over time.

• Ten in-depth topic guides plus an overview hub
• Community-editable — Pro members can suggest edits, reviewed before they go live
• Public-domain portraits of historic Deaf figures, with full image credits

For New Parents

A dedicated guide for hearing families who have just learned their child is deaf or hard of hearing — a calm, practical starting point for the most important early window, written to meet parents where they are.

• What the first 90 days really matter for, and why
• Language access explained without jargon
• Connections to the wider Deaf community and its resources

A smarter, fairer feed

A new feed ranker tailors the homepage and Perspectives to each reader, surfacing the most relevant Deaf stories — with diversity safeguards so that no single source dominates the page.

Open library contributions

The research library opens to community submissions — no account required — adding to the 17,000+ items aggregated each month from the Internet Archive, Library of Congress, PubMed, and the Digital Public Library of America.

In-product notifications

A notification bell lands in the header, alerting members when a story matches their interests or someone replies to them in the community.

Live news map

The homepage map comes alive with location pings, showing at a glance where Deaf news is breaking around the world.

The world, covered

Coverage expands worldwide with international news feeds spanning Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America, alongside a country-tagged world map that shows where Deaf news is happening.

Out of beta

DeafMonitor exits beta and opens fully to the community.

Accessibility-first reading

A redesigned light mode with high-contrast text arrives alongside a reader Text Size control in the dashboard — early steps toward a calm-by-default, low-fatigue reading experience built around the community it serves.

DeafMonitor goes live

DeafMonitor launches as an independent, community-first platform for the global Deaf, hard-of-hearing, DeafBlind, and Late-Deafened communities. Day one brings the core of the platform together:

• A curated Deaf-relevance news feed drawn from a vetted network of trusted sources
• Community events and jobs boards
• Creator surfaces — Creators, Handspace, and Perspectives
• A Shop marketplace and a directory of Deaf-owned and Deaf-friendly businesses
• A research library of openly licensed Deaf-studies material