CBC Communication & Stakeholder Engagement 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: During a multi-anchor news broadcast, a second anchor begins speaking before the first finishes. How should the captioner handle speaker identification?
- Caption only the primary anchor and ignore secondary speakers
- Use speaker ID labels (e.g., >> ) to distinguish each speaker clearly (Correct answer)
- Wait until one anchor finishes before captioning the other
- Caption both voices as a single run-on sentence
Correct answer: Use speaker ID labels (e.g., >> ) to distinguish each speaker clearly
Speaker identification markers help viewers distinguish between multiple speakers and are a standard accessibility best practice for broadcast captioning.
Question 2: A remote captioner loses their internet connection 90 seconds before a live broadcast. Who should they contact first?
- The FCC
- The broadcast station's technical contact or encoder operator (Correct answer)
- Their captioning agency's scheduling department
- The show's talent coordinator
Correct answer: The broadcast station's technical contact or encoder operator
The broadcast station's technical contact can attempt rerouting or activating a backup captioner, making them the most time-critical first contact.
Question 3: A client requests a post-broadcast caption quality report. Which metric is LEAST relevant to include?
- Word error rate
- Captioner's personal typing speed record (Correct answer)
- Caption latency average
- Synchronization compliance percentage
Correct answer: Captioner's personal typing speed record
Personal typing speed records are not a client-facing quality metric; clients care about accuracy, latency, and synchronization compliance.
Question 4: An executive producer asks why captions sometimes appear on a 'delay' compared to what the anchor says. What is the most accurate explanation?
- The captioner pauses intentionally to check spelling
- Steno machine latency and the time required to translate keystrokes into text creates an inherent brief delay (Correct answer)
- The FCC mandates a mandatory buffer delay
- The encoder adds a two-second delay for safety
Correct answer: Steno machine latency and the time required to translate keystrokes into text creates an inherent brief delay
Real-time stenographic translation introduces a brief inherent latency due to the time required to process and output keystrokes as readable text.
Question 5: A Deaf advocacy group requests a meeting with a broadcast network to discuss captioning quality. As the captioner, what role should you offer to play?
- Refuse to attend since it is a legal matter
- Offer to participate as a subject-matter expert to explain captioning processes and constraints (Correct answer)
- Attend only to dispute the advocacy group's complaints
- Have the network's lawyer attend in your place
Correct answer: Offer to participate as a subject-matter expert to explain captioning processes and constraints
Captioners can serve as valuable subject-matter experts in stakeholder meetings by explaining the technical and logistical realities of live broadcast captioning.
Question 6: What is the purpose of a pre-show 'script feed' provided by producers to the captioner?
- To replace real-time captioning with pre-written text
- To allow the captioner to pre-load key names, terms, and phonetics to improve real-time accuracy (Correct answer)
- To serve as the official FCC caption record
- To program automated voice recognition as a backup system
Correct answer: To allow the captioner to pre-load key names, terms, and phonetics to improve real-time accuracy
Script feeds help captioners pre-load custom dictionaries with show-specific terminology, names, and phonetics to improve live accuracy.
Question 7: During a breaking news segment, the anchor reads an unverified fatality figure. How should the captioner handle this?
- Omit the figure to avoid spreading misinformation
- Caption the figure exactly as spoken, since captioners report speech, not verify facts (Correct answer)
- Add a caption disclaimer noting the figure is unverified
- Alert the producer via intercom before captioning the figure
Correct answer: Caption the figure exactly as spoken, since captioners report speech, not verify facts
Captioners are responsible for accurately transcribing what is said, not for fact-checking or editing broadcast content.
CBC Communication & Stakeholder Engagement 3
During a multi-anchor news broadcast, a second anchor begins speaking before the first finishes.
How should the captioner handle speaker identification?