The world is wide and there’s a lot to miss. More importantly, there’s a lot of voices to miss. Blurred Bylines is a place to surface some of those perspectives that often slip below the radar. Whether it’s inequality of access, education or opportunity based on race, income, sexuality or gender discrimination to name a few, voices like these are often lost in the noise.

Blurred Bylines is an effort to bring to light some of those perspectives that deserve their place in the public conscience. Unfortunately, a 24-hour media culture doesn’t allow for revisiting and re-assessing. And this isn’t something that gets better on its own. We have to fight to bring to the surface new ideas and points of view that are usually drowned out by all the noise.  

Yes, our voices are just one in millions of millions of millions. But it’s when that same message is repeated by millions more, new ideas start to break through the noise.

I think if I have the capacity to surface underserved perspectives in a small way, then I should do that. There is just so much that doesn’t get covered well, if at all. And while it’s easy to blame ‘the media’ for society’s faults, most of U.S. journalism is comprised of people who care an awful lot about what’s going on, and believe the rest of us should care, too.

There’s just so much to know and make sense of in a world that has never really made much sense at all. But Blurred Bylines is an attempt to try.

It’s hard to not be angry when there’s so much that happens that just makes no sense at all. When the voices of entire communities, cultures and genders are rendered unimportant and ignored, lost in history and the present, it’s hard to not be angry.

Progress doesn’t march in a straight line, but it’s relentless all the same. With or without its country’s leaders. And often, despite the best efforts of the country’s leaders. But it’s the human achievements, legal victories and new chapters to remind us that despite the pushback and vitriol, progress pushes back.

 – Shari Rose