Received today from Bill Stark, Captioned Media Program:
The CMP is excited to announce a new partnership with the National Education Associations (NEA) Read Across America and the CMPs first-ever Read Captions Across America TM The annual celebration, described at www.nea.org/readacross/index.html, begins on March 2 (Dr. Seuss birthday), but it has grown over the years into a nationwide initiative that promotes literacy every day of the year. We are excited and proud to be a part of this event!
We are contacting your school to invite you to join in on the fun! Many libraries have already pledged to participate by serving green eggs and ham; acting out and dressing up in Dr. Seuss characters; and showing the CMPs captioned media literacy titles, such as: The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, and Green Eggs and Ham, to their patrons who are deaf and hard of hearing. We ask you to be a part in developing a nation of caption readers with your own events!
To assist you in your efforts, we have included links to our Read Captions Across America TM flyer, logo, article, and a sample of the bookmark to be distributed in any way you see fit. (Click on the term to the left to download the respective material.) We are also offering free posters (17 by 22 inches, identical to the flyer) and the bookmarks upon request (while supplies last). Simply reply to this e-mail and make your request. Please be sure to indicate the number of posters and bookmarks your school or library will need.
Join the Fight for Captioned Videos on the Internet
A small band of deaf and hard of hearing people across the U.S. have started to push CNN to caption its free video service. Their job would be easier if they became a large band. You can help.
Just copy what Ed Bosson of Texas is doing. Every time he goes to the CNN website, he clicks on their streaming news, but it is never captioned. His next action is to click on "help" and fill in a comment asking them to caption their videos. He does this once or twice a week.
You'll get an automatic notification from CNN that they received an email from you. One day, if enough people send them comments, they'll pay attention. Try it:
Exploring the deaf blogosphere, I came across Sonny James' blog that focuses solely on advocacy (I know I'm going to be a frequent visitor!). He has quite a few captioning-related posts:
Time Magazine - SJ wrote a letter to TIME informing them about the need for captioning on the internet. Let's hope TIME publishes it!
CNN's Response - SJ wrote to ask for captions on cnn.com. See CNN's response.
Boston Light and Sound - SJ finds out the true cost of the rear window captioning equipment.
Before you buy the video iPod, read Lisa Goldstein's "iCaption?" article at i711.com. It is a perfect example of companies' failure to design accessibility into their products right from the very start. (Registration required to read Goldstein's article)
Grant Laird's blog describes his frustrations with Starz. The response he received from Starz was totally unacceptable, because the technology *does* exist to have captions on RealPlayer.
And do you think that original content is going to be accessible to the deaf?? NOPE!
Not only do we now have to worry about original content being placed on the web without captions, we now have to worry about missing out on ORIGINAL content broadcast only on mobile phones!
Of course the captions, if there were any, would be too small and difficult for deaf people to read on cell phones! We need to pressure the FCC or Congress to mandate that any original content produced for cell phones MUST also be posted on the web by the cell phone company in a captioned format. People would have to enter a username/password combination in order to see the content. I don't have any other ideas for getting deaf people access to this new source of broadcast media.
I won't watch news channels that use electronic newsroom captioning. I was recently vacationing in a town where the local news was relying on ENR. A substantial portion of the broadcast was uncaptioned due to live remote reporting. I had no way to get the information on crimes that were being reported on.
Although only stations in the top 25 markets are required to provide realtime captioning on their news broadcasts, others are recognizing the inadequacy of electronic newsroom captioning. Kudos to Channel 12 (Ohio and Kentucky) for being willing to invest in realtime captioning.
