In March, the service will offer the contents of 100 newspapers everywhere in the United States and Puerto Rico. A free service that provides the contents of daily newspapers to the blind will expand nationwide by early next year. Newsline began a pilot program in 1994 using only USA Today. Distribution of Braille newspapers is prohibitively expensive and other than television and radio, blind people haven't had too many alternatives. Newspapers have not been part of our life.
People access the federation's service through a toll-free number.
They can pick a newspaper, a section of the paper or an article and a computer-generated voice reads it to them. About 30,000 people use the service. Gashel said that number could grow substantially since there are 1.1 million legally blind people nationwide and another 11 million with weak eyesight. The federation plans to include newspapers from every state and might make magazines available, he added. Peggy Elliott, a blind city councilwoman in rural Grinnell, Iowa, said she's been at a disadvantage without a newspaper.