It’s the fingers that catch the stares of two wide-eyed visitors in the basement of Mark Jones’ Openwood subdivision home.

They glide effortlessly over what appears to be a small computer connected wirelessly to the Internet. Four large buttons are on the machine’s face, a spacebar in the middle. Below is a row of raised dots extending the length of the machine.

Jones works his fingers quickly, first finding this newspaper’s Web site — www.vicksburgpost.com — in his favorites bookmark folder. “OK, I think I am there,” says Jones, sitting in a swivel chair in the home, also the studio for two Vicksburg radio stations, 105.5 FM and AM 1490, he owns. “I ‘see’ the news link, sports, crime. Let me read this.”

“A Vicksburg man was in the Warren County Jail this morning for molestation of a minor,” he said, expertly repeating the first item that appeared in The Vicksburg Post’s crime section on Wednesday — making the jaws of his two visitors nearly hit the floor.

Technology has brought to Jones something he never believed would be possible — the ability to read the local newspaper by himself when he wants to and where he wants to.

Born blind in 1955, Jones said he has thirsted for the opportunity to do so without much thought. Throughout his life, Jones has been able to hear news — mostly state and national — through a special service by radio or have articles read to him by someone else. Through technology, though, Jones is able to read the local paper for himself.

He connects wirelessly using a machine called a Braille Reader, which cost about $7,000. Developed in 1821, Braille allows blind people to use six raised dots that are formed into a rectangle with three dots running vertically. The raised dots can be formed into 64 different positions creating letters. It is read by running the fingers across the raised dots.

Jones began learning Braille as a 6-year-old and can read it effortlessly now. He has spent his life in Mississippi and has been in the radio business since his college days at Millsaps. He replaced Bob Pittman, who later founded MTV, at his first radio job in Jackson and has worked at radio stations from Aberdeen to Vicksburg.

His wish to read a local newspaper, though, had never been granted until last Sunday when he sat with his Braille Reader on his lap and began to search this newspaper’s Web site, www.vicksburgpost.com. New on the Web site is the e-Post, a complete edition, page by page, just as it appears in print. Jones, however, uses the links on which local stories have been posted for about seven years.

Several days before our visit, the daughter of friends of his had been killed in an accident. Jones had heard the story, but wanted to read it for himself. He navigated around the site — finding it easy at times and difficult at others — until he found the newspaper account. “I know that family and I just wanted to see what it said, to read the story,” he said.

It took about 15 minutes for Jones, a father of four himself, to find the link containing the story. He finished reading it, put the Braille Reader down, and tended to other activities.

On Wednesday, he again showed his prowess on the reader. It comes equipped with a voice synthesizer, but many of the words get garbled, making some difficult to understand. Plus, he said, hearing the news is a far cry from reading it.

Jones admits he still needs to practice navigating the newspaper’s Web site, even quipping that a small advantage is one can read Braille in the middle of the night with no lights on.

A big advantage he sees will be during high school football season. The radio stations he runs are planning on covering Warren County’s two biggest high school football teams again this season. Last year he did three coaches’ pregame shows with Warren Central coach Curtis Brewer, but he had to ask general questions. He said that will change this year.

Jones will be able to read about those teams, keep informed about local news. He will enjoy the taste of freedom.

“A lot of people don’t appreciate the local newspaper and they complain about it,” Jones said. “There are not a lot of locally owned newspapers around anymore, and people need to be proud of it. You can get national news from so many places, but there aren’t many places to get Vicksburg news.”

Thanks to Internet technology — the latest advancement in the ever-evolving world of newspapers — Jones can keep informed in the same way as the thousands of subscribers to this newspaper — he can read it.