Closed Minds and Closed Captioning
Censor 'Scooby-Doo'? Words fail
The U.S. Department of Education has declared 200 TV shows not worthy of closed captioning. This has all been done with no public input.
"The Department of Education is refusing to reveal the names of the panel members whose opinions determined the caption grants and also won't disclose the new guidelines. By every appearance, the government has changed its definition of what constitutes a caption-worthy program. But it's keeping the new rules secret.
"They apparently used a panel of five individuals and then made the censorship decisions based on the individuals' recommendations," Mr. Brick says. "We have found the identity of one of the panelists. This individual tells us that he never knew he was on such a panel and that his views would be used for censorship. No panel was convened. The five panelists were contacted individually and separately.""
Now I agree that Scooby Doo and some of the other shows mentioned in the article lacks educational value, but it is still censorship to deny it to people hard of hearing. I also detest the fact that all of this was done in secret so that no one could react to it until it was too late.