From the Chicago Tribune

CITY WATCH

Voice of local news for those who can't see
By Jon Anderson
Tribune staff reporter

August 2, 2001

What's going on in Skokie? That's what the NewsTapers Project, an unusual
local news service for people with low vision, aims to tell.

Make that very local news.

"There are coyotes around," begins one of the audiocassettes mailed to
subscribers weekly. "The senior transit program probably will start in
October. A
local doctor has developed a new device to measure sleep disorders at
home.

"And now let's find out, as Paul Harvey says, `the rest of the story.'"

A service of the Village of Skokie, the NewsTapers Project details the
minutiae of life in that suburb and its surroundings, news that often is
not available
to the visually impaired.

Each tape includes a one-hour compendium of reports of Village Board
meetings, Park Board and Library Board meetings, school district
developments, legal
notices, letters to the editor and upcoming events.

Volunteers do the taping after combing through sources of news from
Skokie, Morton Grove and Lincolnwood.

"The way I present it is that I'm sitting in a room, talking and
discussing things," said one volunteer, Bill Gershon. "It's not like
reading a textbook.
It's more like a friendly conversation."

Gershon, for example, began one recent tape by saying, "Hello, this is
Bill Gershon, happy to be with you once again, sharing the news of our
community,
as of July 5, 2001. Welcome to summer."

Then, for an hour, he read news stories. The news about coyotes was, on
balance, good. Many had been seen. None was biting.

The senior bus service, when it started, would need support by all who
could use it--"or it will be canceled," he warned.

According to historians, it was exactly this kind of information that
shaped the world's first news reports, the tales of local happenings
exchanged at
village watering holes or along the banks of rivers where inhabitants
gathered to do laundry.

But for people with low vision, a growing segment of America's aging
population, such daily happenings are often hard to track. Back-yard
fences have been
replaced by condo walls. Neighbors are no longer so neighborly.

Community radio stations have been gobbled up by conglomerates that play
only rock music. Larger radio and TV stations don't have time on their
newscasts
to mention, for example, that the deadline for entries for the Skokie
Improvement and Beautification Committee awards is Sunday.

NewsTapers did.

"You've got to remember," a low-vision journal recently noted, "that the
interests of people with low vision are the same as people who can see.
It's all
part of serving a population that hungers for information and
entertainment."

The service is available to any low-vision person in the area "who wants
to know what the local news is," said Eileen Janowski, program
coordinator. The
free service was started 20 years ago by the Skokie League of Women
Voters and was run for several years by the Skokie Public Library.

"We try to get it out as soon as possible," Janowski said, adding that
the volunteer tapers get to work Thursday and turn in their completed
tapes by Monday.
The tapes get to subscribers on Wednesday.

Each taper has a different style, though all abide by guidelines that
urge them to do their taping "in a quiet location. Telephones ringing,
dogs barking,
people talking, television blaring can be very distracting," Janowski
said.

Over the years, circulation has varied, often reaching into three
figures. The program now has several dozen subscribers.


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