Closed captioning

I pity the people who have to rely on closed captioning of live broadcasts. If you had to rely on the captions exclusively to make sense of what you were seeing, you would be living in a very confused world indeed.

I understand that captioning something on the fly must be hard. Of course people will make mistakes occasionally. I fully expect typos, for instance. But there are a few mistakes that really stand out, and I got to see two this morning, on CTV Newsnet.

Exhibit A: A story on Benazir Bhutto's house arrest. On screen is Bhutto speaking to a crowd. The captions inform us that meanwhile, 5,000 of Bhutto's "support verbs" were arrested. She must be a truly extraordinary woman to have mustered this many verbs.

Exhibit B: A few minutes later, a story on how Canadian kids are hopeless when it comes to understanding the basics of our country's history. In fact, according to the captions, only a quarter of the kids surveyed could give the date of "confertion." You know, if I was asked, I don't think I could give it to you either.