Instead of warring over whether their microphones will be muted while the other is speaking during the upcoming presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump should be worried that they could essentially be muted for millions of Americans who don’t hear well during the live Sept. 10 broadcast.
While broadcasters are required by law to air most programs with closed captioning, the service is often delayed and rife with errors during live political events. And even though many deaf people are fluent in American Sign Language, people who are deaf or hard of hearing often struggle more with reading in English.
A group of 90 disability organizations urged CNN to hire live sign language interpreters for its June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, to no avail. They’re now asking host network ABC for the same.
(In 2016 and 2020, the nonprofit streaming service Deaf Professional Arts Network, or D-PAN, aired their own live webcast with interpreters. But Sean Forbes, the chief executive of D-PAN, told the 19th that they didn’t secure funding for the service this year.)
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Disability advocates argue that the debate host should provide interpreters not only for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who sign, but for the hearing audience, too — to remind us that the electorate is composed of voters with varying degrees of ability. (A recent Rutgers University study found an uptick in voting........