February 13, 2004
Censorship?
Once again, the left shows their inability to interpret the definition of "censorship". This time it is Rori (and the NAD) claiming that the Bush administration is censoring the television programming available to deaf Americans - because they aren't paying for closed captioning.
You can read her take on the matter. I posted this comment there.
This shows a serious lack of understanding of the process, and a good spin job by the NAD.Because of my involvement with Sign Language and Deaf Culture, I wanted to elaborate here.There is no censorship going on, the Bush administration hasn't forbidden captioning on any of these programs. In every administration there are shows that get a bonus, funds from the government to help defray the costs associated with closed-captioning. Some are not going to get in on that pay out.
Rather than complain that our tax dollars aren't going to every TV show being produced, you should be happy that any of them are getting funds.
I don't believe in public funding for private enterprise, so I find the pay out troublesome. Television producers should (and do) factor in the cost of closed captioning into the costs of production, like wardrobe and catering. They will be making money on the finished product and should therefore foot the bill.
Of course, for the spend-more Libs, the glass is never full enough. The government shouldn't be paying for any privately produced programming to be captioned. The requirement to caption is there, and has been for about a decade (not sure of the date?). There are very few things on TV these days without captions, mostly commercials (if advertisers want to waste their dollars by leaving out part of their audience, that is their choice) though older programs sometimes air uncaptioned, as well.
But censorship....? 
No.