House to provide greater closed caption service

A memo is going out today from the House Chief Clerk to announce that starting with the 2008 legislative session, all House hearings and floor sessions that are broadcast to outside audiences will be closed captioned. This service is provided as part of federal guidelines to help the hearing impaired community. Here are some details:

*It will eliminate the need for signers, who are sometimes difficult to schedule at short notice.
*As the events will be captioned in real time with a 2-5 second delay, we'll be able to put TV's in the hearing room for the public.

*The captioning will be permanently part of the video so that the hearing impaired may also watch the re-plays and continue to be involved.

*Captioning is also beneficial to those with normal hearing who want to follow the proceedings but need to keep the volume low or mute.