[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Whether or not public fund should be used to CC the broadcasts is hardly the issue here. How the decision is reached concerning which shows are and which aren't CCed is.

Both issues are equally relevant, Chewbacca. I agree that it would be nice to know how the committee determined which shows should or should not be captioned. I also agree that there is nothing "wrong" or "sinister" about any of the programs listed (at least as far as I could tell).

However, the author of the article is putting a major spin on the facts. Suggesting that the funding for these shows was used to pay the bill to Haliburton or to fund the Homeland Security Department implies that President Bush has a direct influence on these shows not being captioned....but that simply isn't the case.

The funding IS important because the article actually lists the guidelines required to qualify for the federal grants. The Department of Education states that the programs must be informative, educational, or news. If you look at the list of shows that did not recieve funding, it is hard to justify any of them as actually being educational or informative. They are entertaining, but that isn't the same thing.

Something else I wonder about. The author says that - according to the NAD - these shows used to be captioned, but the USDE has suddenly decided they no longer qualify. Personally, I find that allegation somewhat dubious. I've watched some of the sitcoms from the 70's on TV Land and I have the caption turned "ON" on my TV set...so I see the text on ANY of the shows that are captioned...and I've NEVER seen any of the older shows captioned.

What I believe the author did was use a juxtaposition to imply a greater guilt than actually occurred. His statement that "these shows USED to be captioned" comes right after the paragraph mentioning that various sports programs are not captioned now. I know for a fact that many of THOSE shows WERE captioned...so the author isn't technically lying. He talks about the sports programs then mentions the NAD says "these programs" used to recieve gov't funding. That is probably true. But the implication is that ALL of the shows mentioned - all 200 of them - WERE captioned before, but now they aren't.

To be honost, I just don't believe that is the case. However, if any of our members HAVE seen episodes of Sanford and Son, Bewitched, , I Dream of Jeannie, , or Scooby Doo, that WERE captioned, I will be happy to admit my error on that issue.

I don't mean to give you hard time. I actually agree with you that these shows should be captioned and I think the gov't should explain themselves if they DID provide funding before, but have suddenly cut the funding for those shows. At the very least, they should inform the public of the criteria used to determine which shows qualified.

But the overall tone of the article and the obvious anti-Bush spin make me doubt the truthfulness of all the claims it makes.