Lately when I've been watching TV I've been doing it with the closed captioning turned on. I started doing it to be able to follow a show while listening to something else. But it's interesting to see how the tv watching experience is different for those who depend on the captions. It's interesting how incidental sounds are described, and how sometimes what is said is not actually what appears in the captioning. Some shows clearly have the luxury of time to turn an actual transcript into captions, and some are clearly typed out on the fly.
I was watching a Meet the Press where Tim Russert was interviewing an Iraqi diplomat. He asked a question, something about why the Iraqi people have not greeted us as liberators as we were told we would be. To this the diplomat tried to make an excuse of the population having been beaten down by 45 years of autocratic rule. But the response was typed out as 45 years under an "attorney regime."
Hmmm? Tort reform, anyone?
Written, and therefore backdated, to 12/5, though posted on 12/6.
Edit 12/6: I was watching the tribute concert to George Harrison last night. With the captioning on. It was incredibly specific, indicating when the final chord of the song was played, when Clapton's solo had melted back in with the rest of the ensemble? it even spelled out all the vocal fills. It was clear that the captions had been written to really create that sense of immediacy, of being "at" the concert like a hearing person would feel from watching the performance. It was very impressive.