A brief history of Talking Newspapers
Talking Newspapers have been around for a long time, providing a source of local news to visually impaired people thanks to a small army of enthusiastic volunteers who meet regularly to record items from local newspapers. the story goes that in 1968 Ronald Sturt came across a Talking Newspaper while on a visit to Sweden. He was so impressed that when he returned to Aberystwyth in Wales, he recounted his experience to anyone who would listen. Eventually in 1969, the local Round Table donated the proceeds of a Donkey Derby and the First Talking Newspaper was about to become a reality. With the help of a few influential enthusiasts, including a blind reader who managed a newspaper depot, the first tape was produced in January 1970. Thanks to recognition by the then Head Postmaster, the convention was agreed that items labelled for the blind would be treated as first class mail but would require no stamp. This convention still exists and saves local Talking Newspapers a small fortune every year.
Found across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, many "TN’s" meet weekly to produce a news recording and fortnightly to produce a magazine. Funded by donations, the TN’s provide the recordings free to visually impaired listeners. In many cases, local newspapers, and in some cases local newsagents, provide copies of the local newspaper free and a variety of organisations from local councils to churches, scout halls to community centres, make their premises available to the TN'’ to enable recordings to take place
With Talking Newspapers throughout the United Kingdom, the Talking Newspaper Federation is a source of information to its members as well as providing a "voice" for the numerous groups who meet on a regular basis to record, copy and distribute local information. While some of these Talking Newspapers are very small, with one or two people and several listeners, others are very large with 60 or 70 volunteers reaching an audience of 200 plus listeners on a weekly basis.
The majority of Talking Newspapers have no employees, relying on grants, fundraising and donations for their survival. Talking Newspapers do however owe a great deal of their success to the goodwill and generosity of an army of volunteers, some of whom have been with "their" Talking Newspaper for over thirty years.
If you know of anyone who could benefit from the service provided, please send their name and address to our email address and the details will be forwarded to the Talking Newspaper covering that area. Likewise, if you feel you would like to help with our work, either as a volunteer or by making a donation, please contact us using the email address and one of our team will contact you.
In the early days of Talking Newspapers, editors were reluctant to give permission for items to be put on tape. Many feared this would affect their sales figures. The argument put forward that the people who listened to the tape were unlikely to buy newspapers anyway cut no ice. Thanks mainly to the efforts of the Scottish Talking Newspaper Group, founded in 1985, this situation slowly changed. Combined with the introduction of free magazines in supermarkets early in 1990, complete with black spots beside articles which Talking Newspapers could freely use, brought about the final change of heart. Today modern Talking Newspaper editors are spoilt for choice.
Many Talking Newspapers supplement their income by making recordings for other organisations. Whether it is information sheets for the Local Council, Reports on Annual General Meetings for Housing Associations or the Church Magazine, the majority of the volunteers working with Talking Newspapers are more than happy to make their contribution to the business of keeping the visually impaired in touch and helping them to access information the majority of us take for granted.
If you would like to know more, are interested in helping our work either as a volunteer or by making a donation, please make yourself known.