2009 Inauguration Coverage on PBS to be Described and Captioned Live
January 16, 2009
Press Contact:
Mary Watkins
617 300-3700
Media Access Group at WGBH To Provide Closed Captioning And Live
Description for PBS’s Inaugural Coverage
Described version of coverage will also stream live on the Joint
Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) web site,
http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/
Boston, MA — The Media Access Group at WGBH, a non-profit service
of the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, will
provide both closed captioning and live description of Barack Obama’s
presidential inauguration for the PBS presentation of Inauguration
2009, a NewsHour special hosted by Jim Lehrer. The PBS coverage of the
inauguration airs live on Tuesday, January 20 from 11AM to 1:30PM EST.
While live captioning is an established feature of many television
broadcasts, live description, the creation at time of air of a
narration track imparting information about visual elements that
people who are blind or visually impaired would miss, is a rare
service. Dunkin’ Donuts is generously sponsoring the description
service for this broadcast. In 1993, PBS’s coverage of the Clinton
inauguration was the first live television program that was made fully
accessible to the nation’s 36 million deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind and
visually impaired viewers.
While details from the inaugural planning committee are still
forthcoming, PBS plans to include coverage of Barack Obama’s arrival
at the White House, excerpts of the church service and Barack Obama’s
speech to the nation from the Capitol steps.
Hosted by Jim Lehrer of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the PBS
presentation will feature political analysts Mark Shields and David
Brooks, as well as a panel to provide historical context:
• Ellen Fitzpatrick, presidential historian and professor at the
University of New Hampshire
• Peniel Joseph, professor of history and African-American studies
at Brandeis University
• Richard Brookhiser, senior editor at National Review and author
of a series of biographies of America’s founders, including Alexander
Hamilton and George Washington
“WGBH is proud to take part in making this historic event fully
accessible to all PBS viewers once again,” says Media Access Group
director Larry Goldberg. “And we’re extremely grateful to PBS, the
team at MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and to corporate sponsor of the
live description Dunkin’ Donuts for the opportunity to bring not only
the audio of the inaugural coverage to deaf and hard-of-hearing
Americans, but also the visual highlights of the occasion to those who
are blind or visually impaired.”
Dunkin’ Donuts, for many years a corporate caption sponsor of local
news broadcasts in the Boston area, is sponsoring description for the
first time. Shannon Maxwell, field marketing manager for Dunkin’
Donuts says, “Dunkin’ Donuts individual franchise owners are proud to
play a part of making this major event accessible to blind and
visually impaired audiences. We are thrilled that our contribution
will make the images of the day come alive via description.”
Closed captions display spoken dialogue as text on the television
screen. The live captions will be typed by specially trained
stenocaptioners — working from WGBH’s Boston-based headquarters
— and broadcast simultaneously with the live program. The
descriptive narration — provided by an expert team of describers —
will be audible during pauses in program dialogue and will identify
speakers, describe settings and convey other visual information about
the event. Captions can be accessed on televisions equipped with
built-in decoders (most televisions are equipped), while viewers can
hear descriptions by switching to the Second Audio Program (SAP)
channel on their stereo TVs. The described coverage will also be
streamed live on the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural
Ceremonies (JCCIC) web site at http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/
The Media Access Group at WGBH incorporates The Caption Center, the
world’s first captioning agency, founded in 1972; Descriptive Video
Service® (DVS®), which has made television, film and video more
accessible to blind and visually impaired audiences since 1990; and
the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media
(NCAM), a research and development entity that builds on the success
of WGBH’s access service departments to make existing and emerging
technologies more accessible to these under-served audiences. Members
of the Media Access Group’s collective staff represent the leading
resources and experts in their fields.
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