Newsline For The Blind®

A Nationwide Newspaper Service
For The Blind

Copyright © 1996 by the National Federation of the Blind.

Each morning people everywhere pick up a newspaper and read it over a cup of coffee. They do so unless they are among the approximately nine million blind and severely visually impaired Americans. The National Federation of the Blind, a nonprofit organization composed primarily of blind people themselves, hopes soon to end this exclusion.

Newsline®, a nationwide newspaper service for the blind, will utilize telephone lines and digitized voice synthesizer systems to provide blind and severely visually impaired people daily access to a variety of newspapers. USA Today and the New York Times have already agreed to participate in this project. Such timely access to the daily newspaper has never before been available to the blind.

On September 1, 1994, a pilot project was initiated in the Baltimore - Washington area to test this concept. Using software we have developed, the full text of USA Today is converted into a readable form for synthetic speech. Response to the project has been overwhelming. The pilot synthetic speech newspaper is serving 400 blind individuals.

We of the National Federation of the Blind are blind people trying to help ourselves. We are seeking partners to help us change what it means to be blind in America today.

The Need

The latest figures from the National Center of Health Statistics indicate that there are approximately 9 million Americans with severe visual impairments. This includes blind and visually impaired children and adults of various ages. The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, the primary source of recorded and Braille materials for severely disabled individuals who cannot read regular print, has almost 800,000 subscribers throughout the country. All of these individuals are now severely limited in their access to newspapers. Newsline® will make it possible for blind individuals throughout the country to gain access to information in newspapers in the same time frame as their fully sighted colleagues, friends, and family members. For example, blind professionals will be able to converse about relevant data they have read in their newspaper right along with their sighted colleagues. These professionals will no longer be under-informed about information critical to their profession or embarrassed at social functions when the latest editorial is discussed.

Blind mothers will now have ready access to useful information such as community events, recipes, and household issues as well as current events they can discuss with their children. Blind high school students will be able to work right alongside their sighted peers on the daily news project for social studies. Blind people will, for the first time, be able to get quick access to newspapers - everything from stock quotes, business trends, and syndicated columns to human interest stories, sports information, and much more.

In the last few years a number of local newspaper services have been established where volunteers record parts of a local newspaper, which can be played back over the telephone to blind persons who dial in to the service. These recorded newspapers, however, cannot be made available until late in the day of publication because of the need for the text to be recorded by live readers. Because of the labor-intensive nature of this process and the cost of equipment, only selected sections of the newspaper can normally be made available to blind readers.

The Newsline® digital voice newspaper delivery system under development by the National Federation of the Blind will eliminate these limitations associated with the live reader systems. First, because the speech will be generated from the electronic files used to publish the newspapers, the service can be made available at 6:30 a.m. each morning. For the same reason, the entire newspaper (rather than merely selected articles) will be utilized. Finally, because of the electronic delivery network contemplated, neither staff nor the leasing of equipment and office space at the local service level will be required. The goal of the National Federation of the Blind Newsline® Network is to make several national and local newspapers available to all of the severely visually impaired individuals who are unable to read the newspaper in this country.

The Newsline® Network

The network will consist of locally sponsored Newsline® service areas with service centers located in cities of all sizes throughout the country. The manpower necessary to operate the local centers will be minimal and will not require paid staff or facilities other than a location in which to place an electronic newspaper redistribution device, to which telephone lines will be connected. The space required is about that which would be needed for a desktop computer or photocopying machine, and it is anticipated that local sponsors will be able to find a business or other entity willing to house the machine without charge.

The local sponsor will be responsible for raising funds to pay an annual newspaper service fee of $12,000 (or $14,000 if a local newspaper is added to the nationally distributed newspaper service) and for paying the monthly local telephone charges for the lines attached to the distribution device. During the first year, in addition to the annual service fee there will be a one-time service start-up fee of $18,000 for a four-line system and $24,000 for a twelve-line system. Initial service start-up fees to add a local newspaper to the distribution package will be $5,000. Local sponsors may encourage voluntary contributions by users of the service, but may not charge a subscription fee to any user.

In addition to these financial obligations the local sponsoring entity will have the following responsibilities:

Designation of a person who will on a daily basis monitor the local distribution device using a remote touch tone telephone command system.
Advertisement of the Newsline® Network service and recruitment of individuals who are blind or visually impaired for user certification.
Facilitation of the distribution and submission of user certification applications to the National Newsline® Network headquarters.

As part of the National Newsline® Network, the local Newsline® centers will receive the following services:

Daily distribution via modem of the full text of the nationally selected newspaper service. At this time the national service is USA Today. The New York Times will be available soon.
Handling of all administrative functions relating to certification to the participating newspapers of reader eligibility, the assignment of user identification numbers and security codes, and the loading and maintenance of such user authorizations into the local distribution device.
Exchange of user identification numbers and security codes among all local Newsline® Service Centers to permit all readers access to the entire national network of local Newsline® Service Centers, enabling blind individuals to read newspapers at other centers in cases of travel or interest in reading a local paper not available through their home center.
Addition of local newspapers to the distribution package if desired.
Use of all equipment and software required to receive, administer, and distribute digital speech versions of the national and local newspaper package.
Ongoing maintenance, replacement, repair, and upgrading of such equipment and software as needed.
Maintenance of relationships with the participating newspapers to assure ongoing availability of a suitable variety of newspapers.

Joining the Network

You can join the National Federation of the Blind Newsline® Network and launch this exciting new service in your community quickly and at a very affordable cost.

You need not worry about equipment, personnel and technical support, or negotiations with newspapers. The National Federation of the Blind will provide the equipment and expertise to bring your community on-line.

We will provide you with materials and guidance as you seek funding from local resources to establish a Newsline® Service Center in your community.

We would like to hear from you. Call the Newsline for the Blind® Network at

(410)659-9314 or write

Working together, we can change what it means to be blind.

Send your questions or comments