Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

There’s a new feature on our website that we think readers will enjoy.

The newest addition allows stories on our website to actually be read out loud to readers. It’s not perfect and the artificial voice can take some getting used to, but we’ve already enjoyed listening to a couple of stories read aloud, just to see what it sounds like.

We think this feature will be extremely helpful to people who want to put their phone screens down for a few minutes, or for people who aren’t as comfortable using computers to read the news. 

To access this feature, click the play button near the top of any story on our website, www.valleytimes-news.com. The button shows under the story headline and says “listen now.” It tells you how long it’ll take to listen to the story as well.

You might have an ad before you can start listening to the story, but after about 30 seconds, the story audio will begin.

This feature will also read obituaries and any other content on our website.

We understand that the move to two days a week has been difficult on some of our readers. We want readers to know that we are always looking at features to improve all of our products, including our digital presence, and we think this feature is another great tool.

As with any new feature, there might be some issues to work through. If you have any problems, can’t figure out how to make it work or want to provide feedback, please feel free to email or call our office. We’d love to hear from you about your experience.