About DeafMonitor

An independent news and community platform built by and for the global Deaf, hard-of-hearing, DeafBlind, and Late-Deafened world.

What DeafMonitor Is

DeafMonitor is an independent news and community platform for the Deaf community. The platform aggregates and curates Deaf-relevant news from a vetted source list, hosts a community partner directory, jobs and events boards, a creator and shop marketplace, and a 17,000+ item research library spanning the Internet Archive, Library of Congress, PubMed, and the Digital Public Library of America.

The site is editorial, not algorithmic. Coverage decisions are made by Deaf and Deaf-allied editors, and aggregated stories are tagged for relevance using a strict classifier — general "hearing loss" content and audism-adjacent framing are explicitly excluded.

DeafMonitor is independent and not affiliated with NAD, Gallaudet, RID, or any single advocacy organization. It is privately operated and supported by paid memberships and partner sponsorships — never advertising.

Quick Facts

Name
DeafMonitor
Launched
April 14, 2026
Founder
DeafMonitor was founded by Bryan Leeper and launched on April 14, 2026. Bryan is a marketing strategist and the founder of Leeper Digital (founded November 2025), with prior leadership experience at Sorenson Communications, one of the largest Deaf-owned companies in the world.
Type
Independent news and community platform (online newspaper / news website)
Audience
Deaf, hard-of-hearing, DeafBlind, and Late-Deafened communities; ASL signers; interpreters; Deaf educators; allies
Languages
English, American Sign Language (ASL)
Country
United States (global coverage)
Funding
Privately operated. Supported by Free, Pro, Student, and Organization memberships, and Community Partner sponsorships. No advertising. No venture capital.
Website
https://deafmonitor.com

Editorial Standards

  • Curated aggregation, not scraping. Stories are pulled from a vetted source list, filtered through a strict relevance classifier. Off-topic and audism-adjacent stories are rejected. Selected stories receive an editorial wrapper providing community context, with the goal of expanding wrappers to every aggregated story over time.
  • Original commentary. The Perspectives section publishes Deaf-authored opinion and analysis.
  • Partner content is labeled and separated. Community Partners post jobs, events, and announcements in dedicated partner sections — never mixed with independently aggregated editorial coverage.
  • No clickbait, no audism, no inspiration porn. Editorial standards reject framing that treats deafness as tragedy or treats Deaf people as inspiration objects.
  • Deaf-community capitalization. "Deaf" capitalized for cultural identity; "deaf" lowercase for the audiological condition only. "Hard of hearing" preferred over "hearing impaired." "DeafBlind" is one capitalized compound.
  • Corrections. Errors are corrected promptly with a visible correction note. Send corrections via the contact form.

What We Cover

News & Current Events

Breaking news affecting Deaf, hard-of-hearing, DeafBlind, and Late-Deafened communities globally.

Sign Language & Advocacy

ASL, signed-language policy, language access, and Deaf civil rights coverage.

Deaf Education

Deaf schools, mainstream programs, Gallaudet, NTID, RIT, CSUN, and other Deaf-serving institutions.

Deaf Culture & Arts

Community history, Deaf arts, literature, film, and cultural events.

Interpreting & Captioning

RID news, certification, ethics, captioning standards, and accessibility technology.

Deaf Sports

Deaflympics, USA Deaf Sports Federation, Deaf school athletics, and signed-language sportscasting.

Deaf Economy

Deaf-owned businesses, creators, jobs, and the broader Deaf creator economy.

Research Library

17,000+ openly licensed Deaf-studies items aggregated monthly from IA, LoC, PubMed, and DPLA.

Coverage explicitly excludes general "hearing loss prevention," tinnitus content unrelated to the Deaf community, and content that frames deafness primarily as a medical deficit.

Founder

Bryan Leeper founded DeafMonitor and launched the platform on April 14, 2026. Bryan spent his career in marketing leadership — at Sorenson Communications (telecommunications), as CMO at WannaCinn (food & beverage), and at DeafLEAD (a nonprofit agency) — building marketing systems that drove growth at Deaf-owned and Deaf-serving organizations. In November 2025 he founded Leeper Digital, an independent growth marketing studio, and now operates DeafMonitor as a privately held, community-first platform.

DeafMonitor is not VC-backed. It is intentionally small, intentionally independent, and intentionally built to serve the community first.

Contact