Television Media Refuse to Caption!
In a blog post by a guest blogger on DeafDC, Sheila Conlon Mentkowski, the chair of NAD’s Technology Committee, a comment left by Shane Feldman of DeafDC, tipped off us readers about this article, Digital Revolution Excludes Closed Captioning, by TVWeek.
Of particular interest to me was that the companies’ responses to inquires about captioning downloaded videos off the internet and so on, was basically a shrug and a statement of: “We don’t have any plans for that.”
Well, no wonder every time I try to watch something on TiVo, the captions are all garbled. They don’t care if the captions are garbled, as long hearing people watch. Never mind about the 23 million of deaf and hard of hearing in United States. Our pocketbooks don’t count, right?
You know, I think it’s time for us to start filing complaints en masse, and exploring the possibility of lawsuits against the media to force them to start doing the right thing.
Unfortunately, the FCC does not have a specific form for captioning complaints. You have to file a general complaint. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints_general.html
If you want to file a complaint with the FCC, there are several ways to do it, in the order that I think is most effective to least:
- You can file a general complaint electronically with them at: http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm
- Fax Toll-Free: 1-866-418-0232 (make sure you download their 475 form and fill it out then fax it to them)
- Mail your 475 form to them:
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Complaints
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20554 - E-mail your complaint to them: fccinfo@fcc.gov
- Call them at: Toll Free: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice, 1-888-TELL- FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY
Subtitling Movies/Vlogs
There’s a movie theater in my town where rear-window captioning or MOPIX, is offered. My friend, who’s also deaf had problems with his tickets that he ordered on-line to see Spidey 3. He complained to me that the theater switched around the movies out of the theater room where the MOPIX set-up is in, so his ticket for Spidey 3 was useless.
So I went over to the movie theater’s website to investigate for myself… and I looked at the schedules, and no MOPIX sign anywhere on the schedules. So I got ticked off and found a web comment link on their site then fired off one to them.
Imagine my surprise when a hour later, I get a response from them, and it wasn’t a form e-mail! The guy very politely pointed me to the front page of their website… Apparently they re-designed the website, and they had a MOPIX logo, which you could click on and see the MOPIX schedule.
Oops! Then I was even more surprised to get another e-mail soon after that, inquiring about my blog address. He was curious about my blog, and he asked whether my blog was related to deaf and hard of hearing issues… because apparently he wanted to know what the deaf community was saying. He also told me if the deaf community had any issues with the website, to let him know.
That is very unusual here, in my hometown! We get blown off all the damn time! So now I’m feeling a bit guilty for shooting from my hip in my web comment to the theater! I honestly did not think I would get a live person responding to my comment. *winces*
But there’s more! After I gave the guy my blog address, several hours later I got an e-mail from him … he looked at this blog, and now he is surfing my blogroll and he is thrilled to see that Banjo’s vlogs are subtitled, and now he has subscribed to my blog and Banjo’s! And this guy is hearing without any association to the deaf community!
So folks, don’t you think this is a compelling reason to subtitle or provide a transcript of your vlogs?! We are reaching out to the world – both deaf and hearing alike!
P.S. My friend was able to get a refund from the theater. So there is a happy ending for everyone!
Update on P.S. I talked to my friend today and had him show me the website where they mucked up his on-line ordering. It turns out it wasn’t even on the same website I sent a web comment to! *winces* It was made by ticketmakers.com… so I sent them an e-mail, and naturally, I got a form e-mail response. Hopefully though, they will remedy the situation soon.
