Today you can convert speech to text with the click of a button. Youtube does it for all our videos. Our phones will do it in real time. It’s frictionless. And yet, if it weren’t for an unlikely crew of protesters and office workers, it might still be impossible. This week, the story of our attempts to make the spoken visible. The magicians who tried. And the crazy spell that finally did it. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Simon AdlerProduced by - Simon AdlerOriginal music from - Simon AdlerSound design contributed by - Simon Adler with mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Anna Pujol-MazziniSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected] support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Okay.
Alright.
Okay. Alright. You're listening to Radiolab.
Radiolab.
From WNYC. See? Yep.
So, let me just... We are recording. Good.
This is Radiolab. I'm Lula Miller. And today, producer Simon Adler brings us a story from... My mother's living room.
Okay. Watching the television with her.
This is what we love in our reporting. They scour the earth far and wide.
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Chapter 2: What sparked the Deaf President Now movement?
We picked... Dr. Elizabeth Ann Zinsser as the seventh president of Gallaudet.
No! Because she is a very talented educator.
Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. They went with the hearing lady.
Elizabeth Ann Zinsser, she is the new president of Gallaudet University. Dr. Elizabeth Zinsser. Who is neither deaf nor able to speak sign language. Why? Did they say why?
Well, at least one of the explanations was pretty darn ugly.
The university trustee's chairman defended the selection saying, deaf people are not ready to function in the hearing world.
And the students, well, they go berserk.
We were all upset.
Very upset.
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Chapter 3: How did the protests at Gallaudet University unfold?
Okay, so this debate was captioned.
Do you think that was like a special move or was... Yeah, so this broadcast was actually open captioned, meaning that everybody who tuned in saw the captioning on the bottom of the screen.
Okay.
However... Like that was not the case for the vast majority of the coverage of the Deaf President Now protests. And in fact, even the broadcasts that were closed captioned, like to receive those closed captions, to get them to show up on your screen, you needed to have one of these very expensive, clunky decoders.
Oh, like in your house.
in your house connected to your television. Think of it like a VCR, but it's a VCR that just allows your television to receive the closed captions.
So very few people of just like the general American public would be seeing these captions.
Oh yeah, like nobody.
Yeah. Which like, it's so frustrating to think that was like the day-to-day norm for deaf folks at that time. But I mean, there's just something like particularly... frustrating to imagine like the folks who can't access a broadcast that is literally concerning their rights and their access, you know?
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Chapter 4: What were the outcomes of the Deaf President Now protests?
Because Inlee was really, well, only just the beginning. I mean, once she figured out this hack, she began developing and deploying hundreds and hundreds of code words to work around the software shortcomings.
Commaphones could be very difficult for the software. Two, two, and two, for example.
The fix?
Tuku for T-W-O, toodaloo for T-O-O. So if a sentence is, she has two daughters in college, too, I would echo that as, she has tuku daughters in Lake College, comma, toodaloo, period.
So that is... Wait, say that once more. Say that one, say it again.
she has tuku daughter zinli college, tutulu. I mean, it's a whole language that you then have to remember and follow.
As Stephanie's brain melded further and further with her machine, she figured out she could trick it in other ways to make her life easier.
So, for example, Back when George W. Bush was still in office, that's how he was referred to on the air. George W. period Bush.
Eight syllables, way too many to spit out over and over again.
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