closed captioning errors on television

These programs are in no particular order, the notes I made on errors in captioning are incomplete, but in an effort to 'encourage' better closed captioning, the mistakes and possible corrections are listed here. I understand the difficulties in stenocaptioning. I know why certain errors happened. But that doesn't mean captions shouldn't be proofread. Most errors I cite could easily have been found by proofing--the original program audio or video was not even needed.

program: Ancient Almanac: Schliemann's Gold
broadcast on: A&E Television Networks - History International
produced by: 1998 Greystone
captioned by: BCS Captioning, Inc.
comments: all onscreen supers obliterated by captions. captions centered.

program: Ancient Almanac: Masada - The Last Fortress
broadcast by: A&E Networks, The History Channel
captioned by: unknown
comments: verbatim captions. all onscreen supers are obliterated by the flush left, 3-line scrolling captions. all direct quotations from the Bible or literature are missing quotation marks and only the first one gives the attribution for the quote.

program: Century of Warfare: Blood and Mud
broadcast by: A&E Networks: The History Channel
captioned by: not credited
comments: this ww one program has captions that omit nearly every person's name, place name, and battle name. the verbatim, centered 3-line scrolling captions have many errors.

Caption	Should have read
chalk lands	1916 offensive
masked for the attack	massed for the Verdun attack
weakly casualties list	weekly casualties list
material	materiel
he would have ruled for 1,000 years	his system would have ruled for 1,000 years

program: World Tour: The Golden Isles
broadcast by: A&E Networks - History International
produced by: Jupiter Entertainment
captioned by: none credited
comments: this program, about the millionaires who flocked to jekyll island in the early 20th century, is scrupulous in using names in its flush left, verbatim captioning. however, it contains a dozen or more errors, all easily correctable by proofing. uppercase. placement is excellent, with captions moving to top of screen so all screen supers can be read. speakers are identified by name in color.

program: World Tour: Hawaii's Lost Riches
broadcast by: A&E Networks - History International
produced by: Greystone (1998)
captioned by: none credited
comments: weird mix of botched and perfect proper names. Liliuokalani is always spelled correctly, but Kalakaua, not only a king's name, but the main street of Waikiki, is always misspelled. other king and queen names omitted entirely. centered, scrolling 3-line uppercase captions.

Caption	Should have read
Merry Monarch	Merrie Monarch
King Kalakawa	King Kalakaua
overthrown carpet	Aubusson carpet
hula promoted promiscuity	hula promoted laciviousness
Princess Abigail Kavana Nicola	Princess Abigail Kavana Nicola Kawananakoa
King Kawakala	King Kalakaua
a royaling rift	a roiling rift
arms sailors	armed sailors
at this terrible site	at this terrible sight
the American's provisional government	the American provisional government
the palace showroom	the palace strongroom
so the government talked people into giving a little money	so some of us talked governor Burns into giving us
Kamamaii II	Kamehameha II
his wife the queen	his wife Queen Kamamalu