Closed Captioning of Web Video Receive Senate Support

I remember when Senator Tom Harkin made news back in the ’90s. From the Alamanac of American Politics 2000: “His interest in deafness prompted him and Senator Jennings Randolph to bring the first closed-caption TV to the Carter White House; in 1991 he passed a law requiring close-captioning on all 13-inch-plus TVs starting in 1995.”
He has taken on another project — captioning of online videos. The following comes from DeafNetwork.

Harkin campaign becomes the first Senate campaign to use innovative service to provide disabled persons with access to online video.
Des Moines, IA — Senator Tom Harkin’s campaign website launched a new service at http://www.tomharkin.com/closed-captioned-video to make the campaign’s online video accessible to those with hearing disabilities through an innovative closed-captioning program provided by www.ProjectReadON.com.
A longtime champion for persons with disabilities, Senator Harkin authored the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 to protect the civil rights of more than 54 million Americans with physical and mental disabilities.
“The Internet has been instrumental in bringing our democracy closer to the people and it is our duty as Americans to ensure that that those with disabilities can have full use of the technology,” said Senator Harkin. “The recent CNN/YouTube debates illustrated the effectiveness of online video and I am proud to be partnering with Project readON to provide technology that helps to give Americans with disabilities an equal opportunity to engage in our democracy.”
Project readON is the web’s leading and most innovative closed-captioning service that works toward a single goal of making online media content available to all by giving users the power to decide exactly what videos they want captioned and by giving webmasters an innovative and easy to use caption player to install on their websites.
“When Senator Harkin’s office contacted us I can honestly say that this was perhaps the highest point in our professional life of working in the closed captioning industry. To be sought out by the person that wrote the very act that spawned our industry is, to say the least, an honor. We look forward to contributing to online video captioning becoming the norm across the web, and it’s a great personal pleasure to be a part of Senator Harkin’s online video message as he takes the lead in that effort!” — Mateo Gutierrez, co-founder of Project readON.
The campaign will continue to update and add additional closed-captioned videos to this innovative service. For more information regarding Project readON’s innovative services and technology please visit, www.projectreadon.com or contact Mateo Gutierrez at mateo.gutierrez@projectreadon.com