February 8 2004

According to this commentary piece, a 5-member U.S. Department of Education panel has declared approximately 200 television programmes broadcast in the United States inappropriate for closed captioning - a technique that allows individuals who are deaf or have limited hearing to watch television and understand what is being said (The words being spoken are written across the bottom of the screen so that these individuals can follow the dialogue and action of the programme). Consequently, the department is denying federal grant requests that would have made shows like the cartoon "Scooby-Doo" accessible to the hearing-impaired.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) says the government previously captioned these shows but has changed course based on the panel's decision, stating that the shows cannot be described as "educational, news or informational" programmes. According to the director of the NAD's law and advocacy centre, the department has "suddenly narrowed down the definition of those three kinds of programming without public input...The department wants to ensure that deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are not exposed to any non-puritan programming. Never mind that the rest of the country is allowed to be exposed." There are approximately 28 million hearing-impaired people living in the United States.

The Department of Education will apparently neither reveal the names of the panel members whose opinions determined the caption grants nor disclose the new guidelines. The NAD is lobbying Congress to change the policy. "We are outraged the department has taken paternalistic steps to exclude deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals," says one NAD official. "Such censorship is offensive and insulting." Some networks and sponsors are stepping in and providing captions for some of the "inappropriate" shows.

Click here [1] for the full article on the Palm Beach Post website.

Posting to the Young People's Media Network on February 12 2004 (click here [2] for the archives).