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Al's Morning Meeting

Home > Reporting, Writing & Editing > Al's Morning Meeting
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Al Tompkins
Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.
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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'


*1. StinkyJournalism.org's "Dubious Polling" Awards list is worth a read.

*2. Find out why a six-hour flight now takes seven. Airlines are "baking in" extra time to make up for long delays.

*3. Check out RTDNA's News and Terrorism workshop chat site.

4. BusinessWeek has highlighted big corporations that are pouring millions into Haiti relief.

5. Amazing: how phone apps helped save a man's life after he was buried by the Haiti earthquake.

6. The New York Times explains how cancer-treatment radiation saves lives, and ruins some.

*7. Here are some great databases that newsrooms have created to help connect people with their community.

8. A new study explores the media habits of teens.

9. The pros and cons of evangelizing on Facebook.

10. The FCC investigates the health and future of local news.

11. Brookings assesses Obama's first year in office

12. Why you better be careful when covering 100th birthdays!

All of my Diggin' sites are saved on Poynter's del.icio.us page.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but relies on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.


Universities Say Kindle Is Unfriendly to Blind Users
Posted by Al Tompkins at 12:05 AM on Nov. 13, 2009
The Amazon Kindle is an e-reader that has the potential to gain a lot of ground if universities turn to electronics rather than expensive textbooks.

But this week, the National Federation of the Blind announced that two universities would not buy the devices unless the Kindle can make the "read aloud" functions easier for blind students to use.

The Associated Press reported that according to the federation, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University won't consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device without more tweaking from Amazon:

"Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this fall, but now they say they won't look into buying more unless Amazon makes changes to the device.

" 'These universities are saying, "Our policy is nondiscrimination, so we're not going to adopt a technology we know for sure discriminates against blind students," ' said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind.
 
"... Activating the Kindle's audio feature probably requires a sighted helper, because the step involves manipulating buttons and navigating choices in menus that appear on the Kindle's screen."

This week, Intel introduced a pricey e-reader that the company says can read books to the blind and to those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
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