Audio service gives blind readers access to the Herald

By NEIL SANDERSON

Carolyn Peat reads the Herald every day, but she's never seen the words on its pages.

Born with a rare genetic disorder known as the Rieger Anomaly, Ms Peat is blind in one eye and has only cloudy vision in the other.

The 35-year-old Aucklander is, however, an expert user of the Herald's audio news service, offered through the telephone information system of the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.

The news service, which began in March, is based on automatic XML feeds from the Herald's website to the RNZFB offices in Auckland.

Registered users of the Foundation's information service can hear the latest headlines, and use the keys on their telephone to choose the stories they wish to hear in full.

The stories are "read" on demand from the Foundation's computers, using Speechify speech synthesis software, known affectionately as "American Tom".

"It's been wonderful to be able to access the same information that every sighted person can," says Ms Peat.

"There's an awful lot in the newspaper that you don't hear on radio or TV - especially investigative stories, or local news that isn't 'big enough' to make it into a broadcast bulletin."

Ms Peat uses the audio service at work too. As personal assistant to the manager of Mt Roskill-based disability support company accessable, she's responsible for keeping a scrapbook of news stories on disability issues.

"If I hear a story on the audio service, I might go to the Herald website to find it (using screen-reader software that converts webpages into audio) then print if off for our scrapbook."

Although the audio service lacks the searchability and extensive archive of the website, it is a quick and handy way to get the news without needing a computer - a feature that is likely to appeal especially to some older blind people.

"American Tom" is remarkably fluent, although he does garble some Maori words. He also likes to say "zee" instead of "zed". But staff at the Foundation hope to teach him a New Zealand vocabulary.

Despite the limitations of text-to-speech software, the Foundation says reaction to the audio news service has been very positive.

The Herald, which provides the news feeds free of charge, is the first newspaper in the country to be available via synthetic speech.

Carolyn Weston, president of the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand, hopes other newspapers will follow suit.

"Other newspapers are read by volunteers on to the telephone information service. So volunteers have to first get the paper, then decide which stories to read, then ring up the phone service and record them. By the time they finish that it could be about 10am, and they can't possibly read everything."

Ms Weston says access to information is power, and being able to read a daily newspaper enables blind people to make informed choices for their future.

At the moment she can only access the Herald audio news by making a toll call to Auckland from her home in Invercargill, but that will change when the Foundation of the Blind makes the service available to its 11,500 members nationally through an 0800 number later this year.

It is also planning to give "American Tom" a companion. "English Helen" will be available for those users who prefer a different accent and alternative pronunciations.

* During its national conference in Wellington at the weekend, the Association of Blind Citizens named the Herald as recipient of its 2003 "Extra Touch" award for its support of the audio news service.

Association of Blind Citizens

Royal NZ Foundation of the Blind

Scansoft Speechify software

accessable

* Neil Sanderson is Online Editor of the Herald.