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Service offers news to blind
By Vanessa Raba
Old Gold and Black Reporter

Straight from campus, there is a signal sent out to those in need. It’s the gift of news, and a reading service on campus provides it to the blind and physically handicapped in a unique way.

Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the Triad Information Reading Service broadcasts news, entertainment, and informational bulletins, with the hope of reaching those who might otherwise be cut off from print resources.

Jonathan Milam, a university computer support consultant and coordinator of volunteer services for the reading service, outlined the purpose of the project.

"Basically our goal is to give the blind and print-impaired access to the local news they can’t get anywhere else," he said. "International, national stories, they can get those from NPR or CNN. It’s the hometown details that we provide during our broadcasts." Elderly people, many in managed care, who unable to receive newspapers also benefit from the broadcasts.

Milam, who is also visually impaired, broke down the on-air schedule, noting, "The reading service does broadcast programs 24 hours a day. From 8 to 10 a.m. and 7 to 9 p.m., the local news is read in our studio, located in the Information Systems building right here on campus.

"From there, the signal is transferred to the WFDD-FM headquarters and sent out to remote receivers. For the rest of the day, the national news, provided by In-Touch Network, which functions out of New York City, is sent out over the waves. They provide us with the national news and entertainment, and we fill in the local flavor," he said.

The four hours of broadcasting done from campus are in the hands of volunteers who take turns reading from local newspapers.

The Winston-Salem Journal is delivered to the studio, but all other featured local newspapers, including the Lexington Dispatch and the Greensboro News & Record, are provided by the volunteers who read from them every morning and evening.

Stressing that the reading service strives to find something for everyone, Milam said, "The national news networks provide great up-to-the-minute coverage of the big stories. We handle stories that happen on a national level if they have local applications, but we also read everything from local news to comics and obituaries, to horoscopes and Ann Landers. We don’t want our audience to miss out on anything."

There are more than 300 reading services nationwide, and eight in the state of North Carolina. The Triad Information Reading Service was in the works for 10 years before the first broadcast of local news from a sub-frequency of WFDD-FM in April 2001.

The broadcasts can only be heard with the use of a special radio receiver, which can be purchased through the program.

The reading service is always looking to expand into new areas of news and entertainment. Milam spoke of future projects, stating, "We hope, in the future, to have a seniors’ program on a regular basis. We are also looking into a regular children’s hour, where volunteers would read kids’ stories over the air. Another goal is to incorporate a drama program, to get some plays and dramatic readings out there.

Milam explained the current difficulty with expanding the service’s scope. "The real problem right now is that we’re in desperate need of volunteers," he said. "There are sometimes when the shifts just don’t get covered because we don’t have enough people willing to read. We want to expand into these other areas, to be able to provide our audience with access to books and magazines that they might otherwise not be able to experience, but we’re going to need some help."

Linda Sparks, president of the Triad Information Reading Service, estimated that the program now has 50 active volunteers, and urged more to get involved.

"We’re filling a gap for those people who might otherwise not be able to find out what’s going on in their own communities. We do rely very heavily on volunteers, and we hope to be able to count on the community in the future," she said.

School of Medicine research assistant Karen Klein volunteers two hours every week with the Service. "It’s something that I think has a great benefit for a group that, at first, I never gave a whole lot of thought to," Klein said.

She has volunteered for the Service for about a year, after reading about it on the Window on Wake Forest Web site. "It’s a load of fun," Klein said.

Volunteers need no previous radio experience and there are no minimal time requirements. "I really enjoy it. I meet lots of different kinds of people volunteering that I wouldn’t ordinarily meet," she said.

Sparks urged anyone who wants to get involved to call the studio at Ext. 6011.