by Paul Edwards
When the federal budget for this fiscal year was released, $4 million was allocated for Newsline. As many of you will know, Newsline is the name of a specific telephone access system that allows blind people to listen to several newspapers using synthesized speech. This particular system is operated by the National Federation of the Blind. It is not clear from the information that we have so far seen that all of these funds must go to the NFB. Clearly there are a number of approaches that are being taken to providing telephone accessible news and it is certainly arguable that the NFB Newsline may not even be the most effective approach currently available.
I want to spend a little time in this message talking about ACB’s attitudes about Newsline and news delivery. Only after such a preliminary discussion will it be possible for me to talk about how ACB feels about this current budget allocation. We first became involved with Newsline several years ago when the Rehabilitation Services Administration issued a document allowing states to use any spare federal funds allocated through vocational rehabilitation to fund setting up Newsline services. What we objected to was that the only listed option was Newsline. Our position was that states should take a look at all available options and then make a decision about which approach to making news available to their citizens who are blind seemed most appropriate. We also wanted states to be certain that their contract with Newsline or any other news delivery system clearly specified what should or should not be included on that system. It has been our experience that the National Federation of the Blind has not utilized Newsline to provide what we might feel was propaganda promoting the Federation. Let me be clear that our objection does not and cannot apply to a contract that is entered into between a private person and the NFB. However, if public agencies using federal or state dollars are involved, those entities have an obligation to assure that consumer organizations have equal access to information delivery systems that public funds support.
Making newspapers accessible to people who are blind is not in itself a bad thing. In fact, I have taken the position that Newsline provides a valuable service to many blind people throughout the country. I have not so far tried to use Newsline though I am sure that Dr. Maurer would give me temporary access to evaluate the system. Later in this article, it should become clear why I have not used it so far. However, the point I want to make is that the service that Newsline offers is a valuable one and we in ACB should not oppose something just because the Federation does it.
If we apply this same value system to the federal budget allocation, we should actually be fairly pleased that money is included that specifically helps create more access to news for people who are blind. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about getting the federal government involved in broadening access to information for people who are blind. It is arguable that anything that broadens the availability of information to blind people is a good thing.
One of the questions that we need to explore, however, is whether Newsline constitutes the only or the most appropriate source of information. Many older people find it difficult to adjust to synthesized speech. This population benefits from the information read by volunteers through such services as the Metropolitan Washington Ear or the telephone reading service that operates in Kansas. On the other hand, Newsline can make a much larger quantity of information available each day and do it earlier in the day because it uses synthesized speech. I recently checked out the new synthetic speech used by America Online and found it to be much clearer than any other synthetic speech I had heard. This suggests that we are not far away from a time when this objection to synthesized speech will disappear.
I am a computer user. I get news directly from the newspapers I want to read and can choose whether to read them in braille or using synthetic speech. I can go directly to the story I want and am not limited to the small number of newspapers the Federation offers on Newsline. I am also beginning to take advantage of digest programs that allow me to specify subjects and have several stories on that subject displayed for me. I can also, of course, use Real Audio or Windows Media Player to access radio and television stations from all over the world to acquire easily understood news. And, my friends, the fact is that this is just the beginning of where we are. There are several telephone systems such as Tell Me that allow us to get weather and sports scores and news. There are whole new kinds of devices such as the Freedom Box that are low-end Internet access devices specifically designed to bring broadcasts to us.
Put simply, we are at the beginning of a time of change. All of us who are interested in making information more available to people who are blind need to look at alternatives and decide which of them is best. Radio reading services are looking at an Internet presence. Just this month, the Canadian Radio Reading Service went online. When I was in Australia, I could tune into the proceedings of the World Blind Union conference using low-power FM. ACB’s convention has, in the past, been available using cable within hotels and, of course, via the Internet on ACB Radio.
Ideally, I would hope that radio reading services and other interested groups could get access to some of this $4 million so that other approaches to news provision could be explored. If that doesn’t happen this year, clearly we should ask the federal government to broaden its approach next time. I believe it is exciting that government is partnering with people who are blind to explore news delivery.
The challenge for all of us who are interested in information access is to see that we broaden their interests so as not to focus on just one possible approach. We live in a time of great promise. Within a very few years, current approaches to information provision for all people may be as irrelevant as is the phonograph record. With luck and persistence, we can use federal dollars to expose people who are blind to a whole range of approaches to getting the news of the day. New approaches are evolving as I write. Can all of those interested in information access for people who are blind work together to build the broadest range of access choices for the people we all claim to care about? That is the question. Only time will provide the answer!