Court Reporters and Television Access

On March 13, 2013, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced S. 555, the Captioning and Image Narration to Enhance Movie Accessibility Act., which essentially amends Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to make it discriminatory for movie complexes (with more than two theatres) not to have available to the deaf or hard-of-hearing community either closed or open captioning.

Also on that date, Senator Harkin introduced S. 556, “The Air Carrier Access Amendments Act,” which will require both domestic and foreign airlines to have open and closed captioning available to its passengers through individual video monitors.

It is court reporters who provide the live captioning for television. With the startling rise in hearing loss — 1 in 5 Americans having loss in at least one ear, and 60% of deployed military returning with noise-induced hearing loss — the court reporting community is hopeful that these bills make it out of committee.