SWC June 2009 Newsletter

Remember the big bang back in 1980? May 18^th was the 29^th anniversary of the day Mt. St. Helens blew its top. I live about 180 miles from Mt. St. Helens and actually heard it blow. My hearing was much better then, but I know of Deaf people who lived on the east side of the Cascades who didn’t hear it at all. The rest of us had been privy to daily news reports of possible eruption for nearly two months prior to the explosion. But the news wasn’t captioned back then, even though captioning technology existed. There was no Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Federal Communications Commission requirement to accommodate Deaf people.

The ash blew east, blocking the sun so completely that those living east of the Cascades experienced an unusual “nightfall” by noon. Visibility was no more than 10 feet, and the ash so hazardous to breathe, that people were advised to don facemasks before going outside even for five minutes.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be D/deaf and have your whole world turn black by midday with no explanation why? That shouldn’t happen today because our news IS captioned -- mostly.

Unfortunately we have more work to do on the captioning front. Increasingly, Internet news is featuring non-captioned videos in place of written articles. Last week while surfing the Web for information on Flight 447 that went down in the Atlantic, I found it difficult to stay up to date with the latest news due to the number of non-captioned videos on the sites I visited.

Additionally, many DVDs are still not captioned, and companies like Netflix have refused to caption their video streams for their "instant play" option in the past. Once again the D/deaf are being shut out from vital information and public entertainment. This just isn’t right. The ADA was written nearly two decades ago, and we’re still battling for our right to information.

Realizing the ADA was written long before Internet and Web-based video services, I wondered how difficult it was to caption streamed videos. In fact, when I asked Netflix about lack of captioning on their streamed videos for “instant play,” a Netflix representative told me it was “impossible.” But that’s not true. Hulu.com does it.

Later, I learned that in most cases, when videos are streamed for online viewing, the captions are actually erased from captioned DVDs by Netflix! Technology exists to stream with captions, but they claim software problems make it too difficult. When confronted about lack of captioning at a May 28^th shareholders meeting this past month, Reed Hastings, the CEO and founder of Netflix, dismissed the idea of providing captions with their "instant play" service on the basis that others weren’t captioning their streamed videos. However, under continued pressure from the D/deaf community, and famous Deaf actress Marlee Matlin, Netflix suddenly announced on June 12th they plan to provide captions with their "instant play" videos within a year. Let's hope CNN, FOX and ABC follow suit.

Up until now, I haven’t had much hope for change, but Netflix's turnabout sounds promising. Additionally, the Coalition for Organization of Accessible Technology (COAT) submitted a bill called the Twenty First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, H.R. 6330 a year ago in June, 2008. The bill will expand requirements for Internet-based video captioning. COAT estimates that over 100 million Americans would benefit from captioned Internet videos. When it’s simply a matter of using the right video streaming equipment, I have to wonder why it takes a law to require CEOs of big companies like Netflix and FOX to caption their videos.

To learn more about this bill, or to support it by signing a petition, go to www.coataccess.org . For those living outside the U.S., visit the International Friends of COAT site at http://www.coataccess.org/node/33 for a list of organizations working towards accommodations for the d/Deaf worldwide. Technology is flourishing at a fast rate. If we don’t fight for our rights now, we may be shut out of future news and Web-based programming.