FCC Comes Down Hard on Stations

The Federal Communications Commission is the government agency that supervises, licenses, and controls electronic transmissions of communication. WREX-TV must regularly apply for a license to broadcast and it's up to the FCC to renew or not. Within the past few years (mainly since the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction) the FCC has been very strict when it comes to rules and regulations.

Case in point a story reported in this month's Broadcasting and Cable magazine. The Fox owned and operated station in Washington (WTTG-TV) was recently fined $16,000 for a severe weather report that "failed to make accessible to persons with hearing disabilities emergency information that it provided aurally in its programming during a thunderstorm/tornado watch in Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area on May 25, 2004." You may not be aware that WREX-TV is required to close caption all programming. This includes our local newscasts (which are preproduced and written) and our weathercasts (which are ad-libbed). Because our weather reports are ad-libbed, our Meteorologists put detailed weather discussions in our close-captioning computer before the broadcast. The written words mimic our on-air presentations so those with hearing disabilities can get the correct information. While the words are not verbatim, they are close.

But my question is "To what point should severe weather cut-ins be close captioned?" Often times severe weather strikes in an instant and we (Meteorologists) have to be on the air in seconds. If we were to type the information into a computer before the cut-in, wouldn't we be doing a disservice to the rest of the public by being a minute or two late? Our doppler radar pinpoints towns (with times) that storms will strike. Our computer warning maps show the county detail with radar. Our radars are self explanatory. If a Tornado Warning is issued for Winnebago County, you should be able to figure out the information with the TV on mute. I am in no way saying that the hearing impaired community doesn't deserve the information, I am saying that the information necessary is already on the screen! We make it simple for a reason! So everyone (hearing impaired or not) can get to safe shelter quick!

For the past year or so, we have put additional, detailed information on our crawl system (during severe weather events). This works in conjunction with our severe weather cut-ins to get the information to everyone. Putting the information in a close-captioning system before a cut-in would add a few minutes to the precious pre-storm warning time...possibly causing more harm than good. (Just my opinion.)

We at WREX-TV are thinking ahead however...and thinking of how we can help everyone. We have recently purchased a computer that will be able to detect the exact words our Meteorologists use and put them into close-captioning in real-time. As for the station in Washington D.C., they settled out of court...a wise decision as the negative publicity would have cost the big-market station millions. -ERIC