The Deaf Edge

TDI has released a quicktime video explaining about FCC approving approximately 300 requests for television shows not to provide closed captions.

>http://www.tdi-online.org/FCC/FCC-CC100406_OC%2BAD.mov

For more information on FCC and how they regulate closed captions, and how you can contact FCC to complain about this go to: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html

Edited to add:

I just sent an email to the FCC and this is what I said:

Dear Mr. Chairman:

It has been brought to my attention that the FCC is now granting permanent waivers for television programs to be exempt from closed captioning.

There are approximately thirty million hard of hearing and deaf individuals in the United States. I must ask why is the FCC encouraging unequal access to thirty million citizens?

It is unfair that the FCC has approved three hundred requests for television shows not to be captioned, therefore, denying thirty million hard of hearing and deaf citizens the equality of watching whatever television shows as hearing citizens do.

If your child, parent, relative or friend were deaf, wouldn’t you want to sit down with them and watch and enjoy a show together? But now, thirty million of us cannot do that, due to the FCC decision. Very few television programs cannot afford to close caption their programs. I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely Yours,

Jeannette Johnson

I strongly encourage all of you to call, mail or e-mail the FCC to let them know how you feel about this. Feel free to copy my e-mail, if you can’t think of what to say to them.

Silent Cacophony, a deaf advocacy blog has been set up at wordpress.com.

The blog is maintained by deaf and hard of hearing bloggers blogging about deaf advocacy issues, such as equal access, education, and cultural issues. We intend to bring awareness to the deaf community and to the general public about those issues.

Leave a comment on Silent Cacophony if you want to become a blogger or want a particular issue blogged about!

I will be setting up an e-mail address later so people can e-mail the bloggers tips, questions or concerns.

~ Deaf Pundit

After some consideration and discussion with others, I’ve decided that perhaps the best way to start this grassroots movement is to do what anonymous commented on my first post: Please don’t give up on this idea! Try, try again.

Maybe coordinate with NAD (since they do already have some limited “action alerts” on their web site already) and deaf advocates like Jamie Berke and other bloggers.

So, I will be contacting Jamie Berke and some other bloggers to see if we can coordinate this. I think it’s an excellent idea. There are so many issues, but only a few issues that are of interest to me, so I’m hoping that there will be enough bloggers who are interested in this, to be able to cover all of the advocacy issues out there that affect the deaf community.

As for NAD, I’m sorry, but what they put out in the community is just too cut and dried. I understand NAD wants to look impartial, and avoid inflammatory language in their alerts, but they could do better on elaborating on why we should speak up on a particular issue. What they put out is just not interesting to me, and to borrow David Evan’s phrase, I’m a political animal.

Hopefully, if there’s enough interest, there will be more posts here on this topic.

Thanks for your comments!

~ Deaf Pundit

©Jeannette Johnson
All Rights Reserved. 2007

There was a discussion on DeafDC.com about various things. One discussion came up regarding the lack of captioned videos on the internet, and NAD being weak and so on.

I made the suggestion that someone set up an organization for the deaf similar to MoveOn.org. People expressed interest in this organization, and someone suggested I contact MoveOn.org to see if we could create a spin-off organization from them, solely for the deaf.

So, since I don’t know how to do a poll here, please leave comments on here if you would be interested in becoming a member of an organization like this. It would be helpful to see how much interest there is in this, and whether it’s really feasible or not.

~ Deaf Pundit