I'm not sure I'm as sickened by this as you are. Or am I missing something? Let's see.. some of our tax dollars are used via grants to do the close-captions on programs of a "educational, news or informational" nature. Presumably other programs get closed captioned using non-grant money, right? (i.e. the show producers and networks)
The gov't also gives grants for the production of "educational, news or informational" programs in general, right? Now I realize that these grants have greatly decreased lately (something to be not happy about) and I'm sure there are shows that I would really be pissed about finding out that the gov't decided they were grant-able while others weren't - unfortunatly the writer of this article doesn't mention any pairings that I'm familiar with. The article actually has very little facts. It sounds to me more like cut-backs leading to more narrow definitions rather than censorship.
(ok... now I'm really curious - are shows 'required' to close-caption? I bet scruffycritter would know)
What all this seems to boil down to is that Congress mandated that all programming be captioned by a certain point. The federal government, having established this mandate, proceeded to pay a substantial portion of the cost and make exceptions (for things like live sports programming) where it seemed inappropriate to insist on captioning.
But then several lawmakers looking for a "single mother spends welfare check on Doritos" story decided that it was opportune to slam the captioning of entertainment programs (specifically "Baywatch"). The problem being that, given the cost of captioning, no one else wants to pay for captioning. So either broadcasters are going to get relief from the mandate, or they're going to have to eat the cost of the captioning and will therefore provide whatever is the lowest quality acceptable.
But, still, not quite the cut-and-dried censorship issue I had originally thought. More like a "federal agency rewrites regualtions without allowing public comment" issue; bad, but not nearly as bad.
Thanks for making me take a second look, M'ia. :-)
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winterbadger) wrote2004-02-17 09:55 am
wait a sec
The gov't also gives grants for the production of "educational, news or informational" programs in general, right? Now I realize that these grants have greatly decreased lately (something to be not happy about) and I'm sure there are shows that I would really be pissed about finding out that the gov't decided they were grant-able while others weren't - unfortunatly the writer of this article doesn't mention any pairings that I'm familiar with. The article actually has very little facts. It sounds to me more like cut-backs leading to more narrow definitions rather than censorship.
(ok... now I'm really curious - are shows 'required' to close-caption? I bet scruffycritter would know)
Re: wait a sec
Yes, by law all programming must be captioned, at least 95% by 2006. See
http://www.captions.org/factsheet.cfm
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/ccrules.html
http://www.odc.state.or.us/tadoc/techcp12.htm
Just a sampling of other links I've turned up on the subject:
http://www.nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/captioningcensorship/pr.html
http://www.nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/captioningcensorship/list.html
http://www.afb.org/info_document_view.asp?documentid=716
http://pages.ivillage.com/cl-loluv/id12.html
Older articles on the financial incentives surrounding CCing
http://www.ncaa.org/news/1997/970224/active/3408n02.html
http://gusom.gallaudet.edu/patjohanson/COED/COED%20Chapter%206.htm
What all this seems to boil down to is that Congress mandated that all programming be captioned by a certain point. The federal government, having established this mandate, proceeded to pay a substantial portion of the cost and make exceptions (for things like live sports programming) where it seemed inappropriate to insist on captioning.
But then several lawmakers looking for a "single mother spends welfare check on Doritos" story decided that it was opportune to slam the captioning of entertainment programs (specifically "Baywatch"). The problem being that, given the cost of captioning, no one else wants to pay for captioning. So either broadcasters are going to get relief from the mandate, or they're going to have to eat the cost of the captioning and will therefore provide whatever is the lowest quality acceptable.
But, still, not quite the cut-and-dried censorship issue I had originally thought. More like a "federal agency rewrites regualtions without allowing public comment" issue; bad, but not nearly as bad.
Thanks for making me take a second look, M'ia. :-)