MYTH #1: The Bush Administration tried to cut Department of Education funding for captioning!
VERDICT: False
The Government is NOT pulling money out of captioning! In fact MORE of our programming is being captioned!
REALITY: The Department of Education is not reducing their funding for captions at all! They are simply shifting priorities on their funding because there is less need for them to pay for the captioning of programs. A different law, The Telecommunications Act of 1996, requires television programmers such as CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and HBO to caption their own television shows. As of this writing, 15 hours of a normally 20-hour daily programming schedule of all new programming must be captioned by law. In 2006, these television networks and programmers must caption all of their shows. That is 100%!
The PRIVATE SECTOR is taking on more of the burden of captioning THEIR OWN shows, which reduces the government’s burden of captioning popular television shows. With this reduced burden, the Department of Education is able to concentrate on helping pay for the captioning of educational shows and shows that have small or underfunded budgets, such as PBS or small local broadcast networks!
The Department of Education is following a mandate that was enacted during the Clinton Administration in 1997 through an amendment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), which allows it to concentrate on captioning educational, news, informational television, videos or materials. They are carrying out their obligations as the Department of EDUCATION. Please note that they are not named the Department of ENTERTAINMENT.
The Department of Education’s funding level for captioning programs has remained the SAME. Because the PRIVATE SECTOR is paying for more of the captioning of their own shows, the result is that the Department of Education can now caption other shows that would otherwise have gone uncaptioned because of lack of funding, and this results in an overall GROWTH in the number of captioned programs. They can fund captioning for shows that educate our children, inform our citizens, provide training, and caption more VIDEOS and DVDs (the Telecommunications Act of 1996 does not require distributors to caption their videotapes and DVDs, so the Department of Education can do us a lot of good here) that would have NOT been captioned.
If these activists succeed in deceiving the Deaf community into pressuring the Department of Education, the Deaf community would be, in reality, be asking the Department to choose to caption MORE "Baywatch" re-runs and "Jerry Springer" shows, and to caption LESS shows like "Sesame Street" and "SpongeBob SquarePants." This is a foolish outcome that will only serve to embarrass the Deaf community, because the Department of Education will never go back to captioning the “Simpsons” again when they know very well the networks can afford to pay for it themselves.
The reality is that the Captioning Myth is a hoax created by these democratic activists for the purpose of turning the Deaf community against our President!
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MYTH #2: The Bush Administration is hurting the Deaf community by deciding to cut funding for captioning!
VERDICT: False
This shift in Department of EDUCATION priorities is a direct result of decisions made during the Clinton Administration, not the Bush Administration!
REALITY: The amendment to the IDEA was enacted and carried out in 1997, during the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION! The Clinton-era decision to reprioritize the funding of captions is being carried out right now by the Bush Administration, and they are following policy that was set in place during a Democratic administration, not a Republican administration!
Again, because the private sector is taking on most of the burden of captioning now, and because the Department of Education is not reducing its funding, that means there are MORE captions now than ever before!! The networks and television programmers are captioning their own shows that were formerly paid for by the Department of Education. The Department of Education now has greater financial freedom to focus on captioning materials that DIRECTLY BENEFIT OUR CITIZENS AND OUR CHILDREN that would have otherwise gone unfunded!
President Bush is COMMITTED to supporting the Deaf community. On February 1, 2001, President Bush announced the New Freedom Initiative (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/) - a comprehensive program to promote the full participation of people with disabilities in all areas of society by increasing access to assistive and universally designed technologies, expanding educational and employment opportunities, and promoting increased access into daily community life. While under the Bush Administration, we have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of captioning on television programs, the establishment of video relay service in all fifty states, and the creation of a national 711 system for telephone relay service. And let us not forget his father who, while President, pushed the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") through Congress in 1990 and signed it into law!
In fact, the Deaf Community has seen more gains in accessibility in the last four years under the Bush Administration, than any other administration in history!
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MYTH #3: The list of recently approved and disapproved TV programs shows that the Bush Administration wants to end captioning on my favorite show!
VERDICT: False
The list of shows that have been circulated listing shows that will and will not be funded by the Department of Education (http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=181091) are mostly shows that are ALREADY required to be captioned by the producers themselves!
REALITY: Each network, with a few exceptions, is required to caption an average of 1350 hours each calendar quarter (three months period) of all of its shows that was first made or shown after January 1, 1998 ("New Programming"). This means about 15 hours of its programming per day must be captioned. If a network provides less than 1350 hours of New Programming, then 95% of its new programs must be captioned.
Most programming days consist of 20 hours of programming which leaves about 5 hours of programming that is not required to be captioned – which, in most cases, involve a few hours in the wee hours of the morning and a couple of hours in the dark of night.
So, what if your favorite show is on at 3 a.m. or if you’re an insomniac? Do not worry because they will ALL be captioned by January 1, 2006 by the television networks.
Keep in mind that these are MINIMUM requirements. Many networks have already exceeded these captioning requirements. If a network falls under these MINIMUM requirements, you have your right to file a complaint with the FCC (http://www.fcc.gov). If a network is not abiding by the minimum captioning requirements, it is breaking the law, and this failure has nothing to do with whoever is in the White House at that moment.
All of this has little to do with the Department of Education’s funding of closed captions. These are all requirements that are the responsibility of the television networks and programmers themselves. Because of the dramatic increase in captioning of our programming, the Department of Education can now perform a "supporting role," as the need for their funding (and for tax payer money) is slowly shifted to allow a greater focus on programming that directly benefit education, job training, etc.
Still not sure if this will affect your favorite show? Well, the Department of Education’s mandate imposed upon it by this Clinton-era Amendment has already been carried out. Have you checked lately whether your favorite show still captioned? Most likely it still is.
"MTV Cribs" was on the list of shows that will no longer be funded by the Department of Education, and guess what? "MTV Cribs" has more captions now than it ever did before!
This example is an excellent lesson in how government subsidies stifle creativity, efficiency and progress. When the government subsidizes the production of goods, the number of goods produced will often be directly proportionate to the amount of the funding. But when the producer is financing the production of goods himself, he will focus on meeting the needs of the marketplace.
For example, a TV producer that has grown dependent on government funding for closed captions will be constrained by the financial limitations of his grant (e.g. if a producer gets $1,000 from the government for captioning, he will spend only $1,000 on captions), while a producer that pays for his own captions will concentrate on the MARKET VALUE of his captions and will choose to spend what allows him to maximize the effect of his product upon his consumer base -- he will realize that expanding his potential viewer market by 25 million hearing-impaired makes GOOD ECONOMIC SENSE and outweighs the relatively inexpensive cost of captions.
One approach involves subsidies and stifles creativity and progress – the other allows good old fashioned American ingenuity, entrepreneurship and innovation to provide a deeper, longer-term benefit to the Deaf Community!
To learn more, please read:
FCC Closed Captioning Factsheet: (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html)
Media Access Group at WGBH: The FCC’s Rules for Closed Captioning and Video Description: (http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/mag/resources/guides/mag_guide_vol3.html)
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MYTH #4: The Bush Administration made this decision by secret committee and purposely excluded the Deaf!
VERDICT: False
The Department of Education’s captioning funding program is, and has always been, a grants award program that requires an application, eligibility criteria and compliance requirements. Funding from a grants award program is NOT a "legal right," nor is it a "civil right."
REALITY: This falsehood is deceptive and wrongly encourages a gross misunderstanding of how the Department of Education caption funding system works.
Funding for captions by the Department of Education is managed on a grant-award basis under a program under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Note the word "Education"). Grants, like academic scholarships, often involves an application, an eligibility criteria, compliance requirements, and review by a committee of carefully selected individuals. When you ask for a scholarship or grant funding for a research project, the final decision on who gets the awards are not decided by polls, special interest groups, lobbyists, citizens or votes – they’re made by COMMITTEE!
In this case, the eligibility criteria were set up by the Clinton Administration.
The decision to award grants to fund captioning of certain programs are reviewed by an awards committee that include individuals with disabilities, individuals with expertise in children’s television, individuals conducting research in video description and in captioning, and individuals with expertise in literacy. They conduct their award decisions based on certain guidelines, as they always have in the past, that were developed over years of grants awarding activity and by listening to input from thousands of deaf people.
So what has changed? Well, what has changed was that during the Clinton Administration in 1997, this awards committee was told by the government that it had to add an additional criteria for eligibility starting in 2001 – that only educational, informational, and news programming could be captioned with IDEA funds. With this new standard, some programs no longer qualified, and as a result the award went to other programs that DID qualify under the new Clinton-era eligibility standard.
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MYTH #5: The Bush Administration is censoring the Deaf!
VERDICT: False
The Department of Education is simply changing its funding priorities due to a Clinton Era decision, and is not "censoring" anything.
REALITY: Choosing to fund different shows are NOT censorship! Censorship is when one prevents something to be shown at all. The Department of Education is merely choosing to end funding captions of non-educational shows because there is less need for their financial support, and using the money that is more consistent with its original mission - EDUCATION. The captioning of these shows that are no longer getting funding from the government can STILL get funded by other sources, and most of them ARE being funded by other sources.
If the Department of Education said, "We are no longer captioning this show, and NOBODY ELSE IS ALLOWED to caption this show," then that would be censorship. THIS NOT WHAT IS HAPPENING!
Just because taxpayer dollars will no longer be used to caption shows like "Shirtless: the Movies' Most Beautiful Men," or "The Simpsons," doesn’t mean this show is being censored - it simply means that the producers of these shows are expected to pay for their own captioning, just like they would be expected to pay for the sound effects and voice-overs on their own show! Captions are slowly experiencing a shift from being an expense of government taxpayer funds, to a budgetary line-item on production budgets where it belongs!
See Jamie Berke’s article "Captioning Jerry Springer" (http://deafness.about.com/cs/archivedarticles/a/jerryspringer.htm)
By using the word "censorship," democratic political partisans are using scare tactics in an effort to manipulate the Deaf and insulting our collective intelligence. They are using a cheap political trick to send YOU into a panic and drive YOU to a voting booth to vote for THEIR candidate. Do not believe the hype!
How can we know this is a cheap political trick to fool the Deaf? Well, look at the language used by people circulating these rumors – they are using "code words" that liberal political operatives often use to try to falsely label and paint Republicans as cold-hearted religious fanatics out to impose their values on everyone else. Examples of political code words they use to attack Republicans and the Bush Administration: "Puritan," "family values," "secretive," and "censorship." All of these phrases are right out of the liberal Democrat’s playbook, and are frequently cited by liberal democratic activists in everyday politics to attack the Bush Administration, and you can see all of these phrases from hysterical statements by activists below:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4490416/
http://www.fadcentral.org/nadcaptioning.asp
http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=179707
Note that all of these statements stand in stark contrast to the logical, common-sense, factual analysis from the press release entitled "Captions on TV Not Decreasing," issued by the National Association of the Deaf just two years earlier, of the SAME Clinton-era policy directive: http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=177348.
This is an excerpt:
The NAD wishes to point to the fact that the Department of Education currently awards contracts to provide captioning beyond the October 1, 2001 date. As far as we now know, the Department does not plan to cease funding of captioning on television, contrary to rumor.
In fact, we should see much more captioning in the future, even though it may not be paid for by the U.S. Department of Education. A different law, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, requires television producers and broadcasters (including cable-cast television programming) to caption their own programs.
NAD Statement: Captions on TV Not Decreasing (http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=177348)
Which statement is neutral and objective, and which are slanted and biased against our President? You be the judge.
For more information, see this excellent caption myth-busting article on Caption Central "Ask Gary: Why is the government censoring captions and what can we do about it?" (http://captioning.robson.org/askgary/censoringcaptions.html)
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