[bookshare-discuss] Fwd: Fw: All the News That's Fit to Hear
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:42:49 -0800 (PST)
I don't know if this serviceis available only to those
in the DC area, or the East, or everywhere, but those
of you who might like to listen to the Washington
Post, USA Today, and other papers might be interested.
Cindy
> The Washington Post
> Tuesday, March 22, 2005
>
> All the News That's Fit to Hear
>
> By John Kelly
>
> It's half past seven on a Tuesday morning, and this
> room in a Silver Spring
> church basement is filled with a warm, pleasant
> sound. It rises and falls
> like a thrumming beehive.
>
> Close your eyes, and recognizable fragments start to
> rise from the tumbling
> susurration:
>
> ". . . that should worry baseball more -- the game's
> antitrust exemption . .
> . ."
>
> ". . . Patient-owned PHRs differ from electronic
> medical records -- EMRs --
> which are . . . ."
>
> ". . . The charges against Desir are based partly on
> incriminating comments
> he made to a family member . . . ."
>
> It's the sound of the newspaper being read out loud.
>
> There are eight people reading. They sit in eight
> padded carrels, of the
> sort you might remember from high school language
> labs. They have headphones
> on their ears and microphones in front of their
> mouths.
>
> "People like to read certain sections of the paper,"
> Stewart Brown says in
> the brogue of his native Scotland. "I encourage
> that. Their familiarity
> comes through."
>
> Stewart works with these eight readers and hundreds
> more who volunteer for a
> service known as the Washington Ear, which for 30
> years has been turning the
> written word into the spoken word for the benefit of
> the visually impaired.
>
> Medieval monks knew that the way to tackle a
> seemingly infinite task --
> copying the Bible onto thousands of sheets of
> vellum, for instance -- was to
> spread it among a lot of people. The same principle
> works at the Ear.
>
> Each morning when he gets to work, Stewart pulls out
> the day's papers -- The
> Washington Post, USA Today and several others -- and
> uses a red pen to
> assign each story a four-digit code.
>
> The codes are punched in by the volunteer readers,
> and the articles are
> filed away in the Ear's computer system. Users can
> dial a toll-free line for
> the next 48 hours to retrieve the stories they want.
>
> Ever wondered how long it would take to read one
> day's Washington Post in
> its entirety?
>
> "Twenty-four to 25 hours," Stewart says, or about a
> dozen volunteers reading
> for two hours each. "We don't do the classified ads.
> There would be a mutiny
> if we did that."
>
> Nor do they do the stock charts or the box scores.
> But they do everything
> else: They read articles and editorials and the TV
> grid. They describe maps,
> charts and photographs (including whether the
> pictures are in black and
> white or color). They read each panel of the comics.
> They describe what's on
> sale at Hecht's and to which cities Independence Air
> is offering low, low
> fares.
>
> "Obviously, the Sunday paper takes longer," says
> Washington Ear founder
> Margaret Pfanstiehl.
>
> Margaret started losing her vision when she was 30.
> Although the Library of
> Congress offers Braille books and magazines, she
> thinks it's important that
> the blind not be cut off from the daily torrent of
> words that the sighted
> take for granted. So, after learning of a similar
> service in the Twin Cities
> area, she started the Ear.
>
> There's a bit of skill to reading the paper out
> loud. "A lot of aspiring
> radio and TV personalities will come out," Margaret
> says. "It's wonderful
> practice for them."
>
> If they pass the audition, that is: a half-hour cold
> reading of news
> stories, poetry and a scene from a Thornton Wilder
> play. Then there's the
> pronunciation test: mujaheddin, sobriquet,
> vichyssoise, bivouac, Taipei. . .
> .
>
> Half of those who apply wash out.
>
> "If the blind person can't understand the person
> who's reading, then we're
> not providing a service," says Nancy Knauss,
> administrative director.
>
> Dave Katz of Greenbelt passed. He's been coming once
> a week for about the
> past two years and is the voice of Tuesday's Post
> Business section.
>
> That means deciding how to read a lot of numbers. Is
> the Standard & Poor's
> 500 up 6.75 to "twelve oh six point eighty-three,"
> he asks, or
> "twelve-hundred six point eighty-three"?
>
> Upstairs from Stewart, Dave and the dial-in studio
> is the broadcast studio,
> where engineer Bill Hensel watches volunteers Ruth
> Laubgross and Joe Kenary
> read selections from The Post live on the air from 7
> to 9 a.m.
>
> The signal, sent out over something called the
> sub-carrier of WETA-FM, can
> be picked up by special radios the Ear makes
> available free of charge.
>
> "I consider this the pinnacle because it goes out
> live," says Ruth, who made
> the decision to volunteer 30 years ago, the very
> first day she heard an ad
> for the Washington Ear.
>
> "I always wanted to work in a radio station," she
> says, "ever since I was a
> little girl." She likes reading local news. The
> recent glut of Martha
> Stewart and Michael Jackson stories leaves her cold.
>
> "I read with one man for 16 years," Ruth says. "He
> couldn't stand Marion
> Barry stories. I would try to ease his burden and
> read those stories."
>
> Back downstairs in the dial-in studio, Catherine
> Wakelyn is taking a break
> from her reading. "My voice hasn't given out yet,"
> she tells Stewart.
>
> A retired lawyer from Takoma Park, Catherine has
> what doctors have diagnosed
> as macular degeneration. "Eventually, I'll probably
> have to use the service
> myself. I'm prepaying for that."
>
> She turns to Stewart. "Give me something frivolous
> to read," she says. "I
> just read the front page."
>
> He hands her USA Today's Life section, and she walks
> back into the studio to
> start reading again.
>
> Soon someone, somewhere, will be listening.
>
> The Washington Ear also offers audio description of
> plays on local stages.
> If you know someone who would benefit from the Ear,
> call 301-681-6636. Or go
> to www.washear.org.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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> Date: 2/10/2005
>
>
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