Early on I had a gut feeling where this would be heading and how it would most likely end up, but decided to hold out in the (futile?) hope that there might be some righteousness in all of it.

Once upon a time I was a fan of CNN. Aside from their news, the network had been putting out some interesting and quality special programming for a number of years. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman were presenting a documentary mini-series (The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties, etc.) that I was eager to see. But each time I sat down to watch with everyone else, I discovered I could not follow along due to the inadequate closed captions, which were not lining up with the dialog and scenes on the screen. It was starting to feel more than annoying, being unable to share with many others who were enjoying and commenting. Not only that, we were paying for this cable access. Since there seemed to be not much to be done about it in the moment, I had to let it go and turn my attention to other things, at least for a while.

I am sort of a foodie with a lust for faraway places. So it was sometime during 2022 when I attempted to try watching a program that supplied some of that fix (Anthony Bourdain:Parts Unknown on CNN) and found myself giving up in frustration because – as usual – the captions were so out of sync that by the time the words caught up, the visuals had moved on anywhere from one to three scenes past. It was impossible to watch.

If anyone is just coming on to this blog and doesn’t know it, I have a significant hearing loss and am totally dependent on captioning in order to watch television and movies. I have also spent a couple of decades in my former career serving people with disabilities, so you can imagine this situation touched a nerve or two on a few levels.

The disappointments with CNN continued. Friends would ask “Did you watch that special on Linda Ronstadt (Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice)?” No, I could not, because the captioning was so off. With hope, I kept thinking it was just a glitch, that if I turned off the TV and then turned it on again, rebooted the cable box, waited for another day, it would change. I repeated that scenario over and over again.

It didn’t change.

Despite recommendations from my sister-in-law, I could not watch Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. I could not watch the documentary on RBG. My disappointment began to turn to indignation. We were paying for this service in order to watch programming on CNN, which included the news of course, but not just the news. Live news is almost always out of sync, it is the nature of live transcription (although one can hope with the advent of AI that this will become more perfected). Pre-recorded shows should not have this issue.

I thought for sure there must be something wrong with our local television provider, which at the time was Spectrum (formerly Time Warner). I contacted them to ask what was going on and they informed me the issue was not with them but directly with CNN. Just to make sure, I reached out to family, friends, and friends of friends across the entire country who used different cable providers (Spectrum, Frontier, Verizon Fios, Dish, Direct TV, RCN/Astounding, Xfinity, etc). From California, Texas, Florida, North Dakota, Georgia, Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Massachusetts, Oregon and New York – you can see I was pretty thorough in my inquiries – they all tuned in to the CNN documentaries and found the same thing. There was no doubt that CNN was the problem. Their responses ranged from “That’s horrible!” to “How can anybody manage to watch anything like that?” to “That’s discrimination.”

While I understand that live broadcasts like the news are always on a bit of a lag, these were pre-recorded shows that were either aired (usually on a Sunday evening) or could be brought up On Demand. There seemed to be no good reason why CNN could not provide adequate, on point captioning for those who depended on it, especially with all the technological advancements happening with AI. Every other major network seemed to be able to do this with their pre-recorded material.

Towards the end of 2022 I reached out to the CNN contact that dealt with captioning issues (at the time it was IPClosedCaptioning@Turner, based in Atlanta) via phone and email, addressed directly to the person listed in charge. I received no response at all. It was beyond comprehension why the CNN desk actually responsible for captioning could not be bothered to answer my inquiries.

Not knowing where to turn, the next step was to contact a Hearing Health Advocate, who suggested I should bring my complaint to the FCC Disability Rights Office. Not really wanting to go down that rabbit hole if it wasn’t necessary, I attempted to contact CNN once again by email. No response. Given that brush-off, at the end of December 2022 I filed an informal complaint with the FCC, providing both explanations and videos of the issue. In January 2023 the FCC opened a ticket addressing the situation.

Much to my surprise, a few short weeks later I received an actual phone call from the FCC following up on my complaint. I was pretty impressed with their personal – and what appeared to be concerned – response to this dilemma. They let me know they were working on it.

It is interesting that while CNN could not be bothered to respond to me after a number of attempts, once contacted by the FCC they managed a pretty quick response to both of us. Essentially what they did was throw around references to Section-this and Section-that of the commissions rules, full of numbers, letters and sub-clauses, which supported their argument that since they are a network which “airs a high proportion of live or topical time-sensitive programming” this therefore allowed them the flexibility to continue to use the 24/7 real-time captioning like you see on live news (which of course would be out of sync) – just in case some “breaking news” happens….. and that their delay of 3-5 seconds falls within the parameters of what are acceptable lags per all those sections and sub-clauses. The letter was from CNN/Warner/Discovery. Apparently there have been some acquisitions and changes going on there along the way.

Despite this response, their pre-recorded programs air at specific times, they are repeated, and they are also available to be pulled up “on demand” well after the fact. Why any “news break” could not be inserted if necessary, just like on any other network, without it affecting pre-existing accurate captions appears to be just an excuse. As a friend who is a documentary maker said to me after I shared the situation, “Of course they can accommodate it. That’s bullshit.”

 For all the hearing people out there who might not get it – try turning the sound off or extremely low on your TV, turn on the CC, and attempt to follow a show through its entirety with a 3-5 second (or more) delay. Then see how long it takes before finding it so much work (and sometimes even brain-frying) that you give up watching, since the dialog does not match the video. Not only that, some of the captioning lags on CNN pre-recorded programs have ranged anywhere from 5-14 seconds. (Yes, one of the Stanley Tucci segments swung erratically and wildly back and forth with the captions, the extreme clocked with as much as a fourteen second lag). Count out fourteen seconds (or ten, or five, or even three) while watching a program and notice how often the scene, picture and dialog changes. In captioning time that is an eternity. By as little as five seconds or less, you can already be on to an entirely different subject.

In their closing comments, with respect to their collection of Originals series, CNN said the network “hopes to continue to minimize any attendant latency issues”. They “hope” to. Not “will.”

They didn’t.

Actually, in the year following this letter sometimes it was even worse than before.

It came to a point where it all began to feel rather quixotic – fighting windmills, foolishly pursuing an idea that is not going to come to fruition. I was aware this was discrimination. It is discriminating against people who cannot hear well, but also age discrimination, as many who are older depend on captioning. Every time a show was broadcast on CNN that I wanted to partake in and couldn’t, I felt what eventually became anger rising all over again. So I soldiered on.

Next, I wondered who might be sponsoring this. Approaching some sponsors of CNN to let them know about the issue was met without response. Clearly they don’t give a damn either. I won’t even bother to list them here; you can look them up if you are interested. I will say a number of car insurance companies are among them. Running through the list, there are sponsors of CNN that I will never, ever give my business to, given they are subsidizing a company that discriminates against people with disabilities (which they now know about because I told them so, if they didn’t already know before). Concerning a few of the sponsors, it is almost impossible to untangle from them, as their big business tentacles are in everything. No point in making a segue into that whole subject here. I think we all pretty much know how this runs.

Onward with the saga; the FCC continued to be in touch a few more times, which I thought was rather earnest. While they didn’t want to push too much by stepping on CNN toes and irritating them (while they were standing behind all those sections and clauses), there was an expectation that the network was eventually going to remedy the problem as they had indicated. “When?” I asked. Within the next few months there should probably be some movement on this, I was assured. I waited. Every once in a while I would check in again. “When?”

No change.

We moved on through 2023 and with it, more new documentaries, series and special programs from CNN were aired. Guliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor? – out of sync.

The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper – unwatchable and unsynchronized. Periodically I would follow up again with the FCC to find out where things were at. WHEN????? When exactly will they be fixing this?

Eventually, in the spring of 2024, the concerned and engaging person I had been in contact with from the FCC stopped responding to me about an issue that clearly is not going to be resolved. In the meantime, CNN began to wind down on their docu-series anyway.

In these few years of frustration and periodic rage at this media giant that used to tout themselves as “The Most Trusted Name in News,” I had fantasies of contacting the hosts of those presentations, who would surely speak out, since they are all righteous guys, right? How do you all feel about people who don’t hear well not being able to watch your shows? Where are you Tom Hanks? Will you help me, Stanley Tucci? Will you stand up for us, Anderson Cooper? Of course I didn’t really try contacting any of them, but it rolled around in my mind for a while. Realistically, the way things were playing out, they probably would not have responded either.

Still unwilling to throw in the towel just yet, in 2024 I tried watching The United States of Scandal with Jake Tepper. The CC was insanely impossible to follow.

Given my dismay and outrage at CNN and their lack of care, as a matter of principle I pretty much stopped watching CNN; not just their special programs but their news too. However, a few months into 2024 I was curious to see the four part series The Many Lives of Martha Stewart (Why can’t I just give this up?). Of course it was a wild fantasy, but perhaps (just maybe?) CNN might have actually stepped up and ended up doing the right thing after all? I tuned in a bit early; one of Anderson Cooper:The Whole Story segments was on, which was pre-recorded and airing again. Of course the captions were thoroughly useless. I was just about to turn the channel off in disgust when it ended and the Martha Stewart story came on.

Unbelievably, Martha’s captions were lined up. Totally, beautifully synchronized, throughout the entire four segments. Of course Martha Stewart was perfect. I have no idea how that happened, why or who managed to pull that feat off, but there it was, clearly possible. Oddly and unfortunately, it was just on her story and no place else. Eagerly I brought up other CNN specials again, only to find all the other captioned shows were unsynchronized trash. Only Martha Stewart had it right. I actually had to laugh, albeit wryly.

Eventually some of the documentary series mentioned above found their way to streaming services like YouTube, Max, Prime and Hulu. I was finally able to watch Anthony Bourdain elsewhere, which is what had set this whole thing in motion to begin with. Once off of CNN, all were exactly the way there are supposed to be, just like all the other shows on those venues. It just meant having to watch them in a different place instead of enjoying them with everyone else at the original time of airing. Left behind and after the fact.

Concurrently, in 2023 and early 2024 I was connected to a member of the Division of Human Rights Disability Advisory Council for my state, who was very much onboard with continuing to address this whole issue. I posed the idea to him that maybe someone at The New York Times might be interested in pursuing a story on the subject. He told me flat out that they wouldn’t give a crap about something like this, and I think he’s probably correct. On further discovery it seems – quite ironically – that the former chief executive of The New York Times was hired by CNN in 2023 as their new CEO. So I guess that’s not happening. The member of the advisory council said he was willing to refer the CNN issue to a few attorneys that might possibly be interested in taking us on as plaintiffs.

And this is where I stopped.

Perhaps if I was younger and up for a good fight, I might have taken him up on the idea. But I am not younger. I’m exhausted from the effort and energy expended, disheartened from the dismissive we-really-don’t-give-a-shit-about-you stance. Sadly, it’s not just CNN. It’s an attitude that has permeated just about every aspect of our daily lives these days, coming from all directions. You don’t matter to them. They try and wear you down until you finally give up and just go away.

During my unpleasant foray into CNN and their out-of-sync hell, there were a few other unexpected revelations. Of the people I questioned who were getting their news and watching these specials and documentaries on CNN via cable, most of them were older. The younger people tended to stream their information, many telling me they did not (and would not) even watch CNN. It appears it’s not “The Trusted Name in News” for many. On the technical side, I also found there were many (mostly older people) who did not even know how to access the closed captioning on their television, finding it confusing or convoluted, too much effort to turn them on and off, with too many steps. There were complaints that the typed words of the captions covered up things they wanted to see and could not be moved out of the way – blocking things like baseball scores or faces. A whole other subject, but worth mentioning.

As I write this in 2025, I have not bothered to go back to check and see if CNN finally did something about their captioning, but given their lack of action over the last number of years, I highly doubt it. Even if they did, at this point it doesn’t matter anymore. They lost me.

There are a few things I would like to say to the FCC, who appears to have decided not to pursue this corporate behemoth further and eventually dropped the ball. Such high hopes ending in such a disappointment. How about updating the Commission’s Rules and Captioning Requirements and tightening those loopholes in order to truly address this discriminatory problem?

What I would like to say in response to those who could have remedied this at CNN, and to the SVP/Head of Global Ethics & Compliance at Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc., who threw the sections, clauses, quotes, parenthesis and italics back at us instead of taking responsibility and actually fixing the problem. Does that make you feel great? Are you proud of yourself?

Perhaps some day it will be your child, your mother, your spouse, your loved one who finds themselves in a situation where they are not accommodated and essentially iced out because nobody cared enough to do the right thing. Maybe someone you care about will be sitting in a classroom, a lecture hall, a play, concert, or movie theater and find they cannot enjoy or participate like everybody else because a loop system or caption was not provided. Maybe they will have actually paid for that service or show and are presented with the insult of having no way to access it. Perhaps they will be sitting in your very own living room, ready to enjoy a television program together with their family, friends, or with you, and find themselves isolated and essentially socially removed from participating – all because they were not deemed important enough by someone up the corporate ladder willing to make the effort.

Perhaps someday that person being discriminated against and left out might very well be you.

~*~