The News From The WWW - 3/16/09 - Epsoide 50 - FIFTY EPISODES!!!

[Austin G]

Episode 49 is now on-line: www.TheNewsFromTheWWW.org

Thanks to everyone who volunteered last week!!! We had a full hour of programming!! Thanks to Ran Allen for submitting a long peice 2 weeks ago that fit in this week and brought us to a full hour! Great job guys! Double thanks to those of you who recorded TWO articles!!!

This is our 50th episode! Thanks to all the long time volunteers! This is quite a feat! 2 more episodes and we will have been at this for a full year!!


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If you have a chance, please go edit last week's post and delete your MP3 file attachment in order to conserve precious server space on Voice-Overs.com

As always, if you have never volunteered before, we would love to have you aboard! PM me with any questions.

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Instructions:

1. Select a news article that you would like to read (see guidelines below).

2. Create a post in this thread with the TITLE / HEADLINE of the article and a LINK / URL to the article to claim or get "dibs" on that story so no one else will take it or read a very similar article for this episode.

3. Record the title, intro script, article, and close script and save it as a MONO MP3 with a bit rate of 96 kbps and sampling rate of 44100hz.

4. Edit your first post and add the recorded article / MP3 as an attachment and add the total run time / TRT in your post so we can track the length of the program (we need one hour worth of material).

5. DEADLINE: Please submit your recorded article by Sunday at Noon 3/22/09.

Guidelines for choosing a news article:

As a VO actor you have to read other peoples scripts all day - here you get a chance to read what you want / what interests you! Please keep in mind that the target audience is mostly older people with vision issues who already get a lot of the mainstream news from the RIS service through other volunteers reading local and regional newspapers in addition to listening to TV and regular radio. Please avoid political and breaking news as those are already covered and change from day to day. Pick articles that will have a week or more of shelf life. Also avoid celebrity gossip, stories of a sexual nature, murder, abuse, etc. Choose articles that you would feel comfortable reading to someone you just met etc. Articles that are interesting, funny, clever, etc.

Please choose / read articles that are longer than 3 min when read (not including intros).

A lot of short articles can be difficult to concentrate on / listen to. Often, you may come across an interesting story or news topic on one website but it is the abbreviated article. If you search the subject of the article on Google News Search, you might be able to find a longer / more in depth article on the subject from another news source. Just use your best judgment. If everyone contributed an article with a average length of 5 minutes, we would only need 12 VO actors contributing on a weekly basis to fill the hour time slot!

Script:

Here is the script I would like each person to read before reading their article in order to have consistency from one article to the next:

"[ARTICLE TITLE (for show intro montage), PAUSE]

Hi, this is [MY NAME] from [CITY, STATE] and [YOUR DOT COM WEBSITE (if applicable)] with an article about __________(short but intriguing summary about the article you chose).

PAUSE From [SOURCE], [TITLE OF ARTICLE].

[READ ARTICLE]

PAUSE, "For The News From The World Wide Web, I'm [YOUR NAME].

Example:

"City Council Outlaws Skateboarding In Downtown: Youth Unhappy, (PAUSE) Hi, this is Homer Simpson from Springfield, Illinois and homersimpson.com with an article about how one small town is dealing with a skateboarding hooligans. PAUSE From the Springfield Gazette dot com, City Council Outlaws Skateboarding In Downtown: Youth Unhappy" {STORY} "For the News From The World Wide Web, I'm Homer Simpson
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Here are some good places to look for news articles:

The Drudge Report
DRUDGE REPORT 2008®

Yahoo News Most Popular Stories
Most popular news stories as ranked by readers of Yahoo! News

AP Wire Top Stories from the New York Times
Associated Press News - Top Stories from the AP - The New York Times

The Consumerist (great blog on consumer topics - read the article their blog posts are talk about)
The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back

[Jay Thompson]

50! Congratulations!

Here is mine for this week. Dollars from dirt:Economy spurs home garden boom

Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom

TRT 6:55

[Diane Havens]

Wow! A year. The time does fly -- and now I'm a year older myself this month, thought I'd do this one:

The Games of Their Lives

RT 6:52

From getting high to getting rich to getting serious, boomers kept changing the meaning of success.

The Games of Their Lives | Newsweek Boomer Files | Newsweek.com

[Roger Baker]

Yee hi!! 50! Congratulations Austin! Like Diane says... how time flies!!

Here's mine for the week:

Bejeweling For Dollars
Bejeweling for Dollars - Page1 -Â* MSN Tech & Gadgets - News and Features

Run Time: 6:11

Thanks!!

Roger

[John Zadikian]

50, eh? We're climbing faster than the Dow Jones average these days!

I'll take these two this week:

Eating less salt is healthier for you (from the Obvious News Network, LOL!)
TRT - 7:24
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1884864,00.html

Life slowly returns to normal for Hurricane Ike victims
TRT - 6:25
Sounds of hope heard in communities touched by Ike | Galveston after Ike | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

[Colin Campbell]

As a legally blind person (not that it's so important now, it isn't) I'd like to thank all of you. You have no idea, particularly when I was a child, how much it meant to me to have things read to me. I discovered the world through the Library of Congress's "Talking Book" program (and a big dose of radio) when I was young. My whole life's career and interests started way back then. You have no idea how much joy you bring to people who are blind. I never learned braille, but I bet it's not anywhere near as enjoyable.

Thank you all.

I print these stories out in a 20 point font to read them. It's a labor of love.

[Roger Baker]

You're welcome Colin. What we do is important to those who may have limited vision. I enjoy being a part of this project and I am glad Austin put it together. Thanks to you for doing a great opening and ending too. A special thanks to Austin for all of his hard work too!! I hope we have 10x more episodes!!!!

[John Zadikian]

Yeah, what Roger said!

[ranalanricard]

..and ditto again for me. For me, it's not just a labor of love, it's an honor to be able to put my voice to information that some folks might not otherwise get.

It's written in a pretty incredible book, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." pretty good words to live by. I reckon 'payin' it forward' like this is a pretty good investment ;o)

Ran

[ranalanricard]

I'm going to try for two articles this week. Here's the first, from Foxnews.com;

Veterans Groups Blast Obama Plan for Private Insurance to Pay for Service-Related Health Care

Veterans Groups Blast Obama Plan for Private Insurance to Pay for Service-Related Health Care - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.com

*** changing horses in mid stream here. Thankfully the President has backed off his plan to change our wounded warriors health care. Bravo Mr. President!

I will now be offering this instead ....

UpBeat: "Attitude is Everything" "Attitude is Everything ... Lessons from the School of Life," by Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

...and the second;

Feeling Good by Doing Good; Philanthropists Say They Enjoy Their Fortunes by Giving Them Away from ABCnews.com

ABC News: Feeling Good by Doing Good

TRT 4:29
TRT 5:17