Don’t miss this fantastic article in today’s Independent featuring sign language interpreter Rob Skinner and the issue of deaf access to the media.
Extract:
When Michael Bloomberg appeared during Hurricane Sandy last month, his sign language interpreter unwittingly stole his thunder. Lydia Callis translated the New York City mayor’s announcements using every muscle she possessed. So expressive was she on a stage filled with stiff officials that CNN filmed a prime-time profile, Saturday Night Live sent her up in a sketch and websites around the world hummed with love for Lydia.
Translators should be invisible, but sign language interpreters must be seen to be heard. As Callis showed, this sometimes earns them an audience beyond the deaf community. It can be intentional. During the 2004 Presidential elections in Ukraine, Natalia Dmytruk tore up the script on state-run news to tell deaf viewers early results were “lies” and that “I am very ashamed to translate such lies to you”. Her silent rebellion emboldened the protests that led to the Orange Revolution.
Such breakthroughs are rare, however. In the meantime, a dedicated profession works behind the scenes and from the corner of our television screens. Increasingly, the minority they serve, who can’t hear but also struggle to be heard, say that government and media fail to give them access to society the rest of us take for granted.
To read the rest of the article, click here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/do-you-see-what-im-saying-8352888.html
And don’t miss ‘We’re being left out of the big society, say the deaf’ also in today’s Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/were-being-left-out-of-the-big-society-say-the-deaf-8352884.html
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Anonymous
November 27, 2012
Er… you seem to have given the same link twice under the article.
ArdenholmeGenealogy
November 27, 2012
Sorry, can you update the links – both go to the same article on being left out of the big society. thanks.
Editor
November 27, 2012
Thanks, updated now! Charlie
Linda Richards
November 27, 2012
The issue of important daily or political news not being covered by in vision interpreters is not a new one. Major events including 9/11 and 7/7 were among those not interpreted. That is a decision made by the BBC news team. Red Bee Media bow to the BBC in agreeing to this exclusion of Deaf people in the Big Society. It would be good to see some proactive work done to enforce the access to information to which we are entitled. Bryn Brooks, former Editor of See Hear was the only one who really pushed for live or close to live transmission of major events and on the major BBC channels too.
The BBC currently outsources its subtitling, audio description and in-vision obligations to Red Bee Media (RBM). There needs to be an independent point to which people can register their comments, compliments and complaints as this is managed by RBM themselves and there have been accounts of complaints not being passed on to the BBC (uncovered only when someone wrote to the BBC to state that they had not had a reply to their complaint about subtitling). Until the BBC and other broadcasters know the true views of “the Deaf”, we will continue to get the service we do.
Subtitling has been addressed many many times… slow, inaccurate, the wrong words chosen, out of synch, covering up captions, and so on. The quality of subtitling has dropped over recent years in ‘live’, ‘as live’ and pre-recorded subtitles.
The issue of access by in vision translators and interpreters across all the broadcasters urgently needs addressing. The provision is often poor and inaccessible. Television and the development of video technology have been the means by which the BSL platform has gained prominence but we do not necessarily have the quality, skill, accuracy or appropriate people in such positions. Being functionally bi-lingual would be a start…..
Until something is done to push for a review of, consultation about, and assessment of the current provision, broadcasters are wasting their money (millions of it), Deaf viewers are being both insulted and cheated, and ‘access’ becomes a tokenistic term that s bandied about in relation to ‘compliance’ with the law. Where’s the compliance to standards?
Yes, we’re being left out of the Big Society but when the exclusion is from within, that is insidious and the worse form of collusion.
lana
November 27, 2012
Rob and his famous pointing finger