re: Sign language on every .gov press conference. WTF?

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Wouldn't it just be easier for them to have the words on the screen? Speech to text is pretty accurate these days.

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But what about the deaf people who are also illiterate?

A deaf guy explained in this Washington Post article why cc is not the same:

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The move marks the first time a presidential administration will have regularly accessible news briefings using ASL, a step that was welcomed by the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.?

“I felt a sense of greater equality,” said Robert B. Weinstock, a spokesperson for Gallaudet University in Washington, where all instruction and campus life activities take place using ASL.?Weinstock, speaking through an interpreter, told The Washington Post that the deaf community is happy that the White House is making briefings accessible and that having an ASL interpreter makes watching the news more enjoyable.?

Traditional broadcasts of the news briefings often have closed captions, but Weinstock noted that captions and ASL aren’t equivalent access; closed captions can’t capture the full range of information — and they’re not always accurate.?“If a person’s not familiar with that name, then the person typing out captions or hearing the name might not type it out correctly,” Weinstock said.?“The ASL rendition of the spoken English is more faithful, and more conceptually accurate in many cases than the captions,” he added in a follow-up email.?Weinstock said that interpreters don’t convey just words, but also nonverbal cues like tone and mood which they relay with facial expressions and body language.

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