MSNBC's Chyrons obscure parts of English translations. How stupid!

[Towlie]

Last edited Wed Mar 16, 2022, 04:39 PM - Edit history (2)

Perhaps all other news channels do this too, some others do this, or MSNBC is the only one. But in any case it's incredibly dumb and frustrating.

Edit: It seems that so far nobody understood what I meant, so I cobbled together an illustration. This isn't an actual screen cap; I don't have one of those, but it shows what MSNBC is doing and what I'm griping about:

[Sherman A1]

1. C-Span is your friend

Turn the cable noise off and never turn back.

[FakeNoose]

2. I think they do a better job if they get the transcript of the speech in advance

... but my understanding is limited to certain situations. For example I know a little bit of German and I can't call myself fluent. I can hear conversational phrases and (sometimes) get their meaning. When I hear a TV program in German, I can understand that the English translator occasionally passes over certain words and phrases that take too long to translate. Their goal is to keep up with the German speaker and not lose the train of thought. (i.e. the important ideas)

These television news translators who must listen in Russian or Ukrainian, and then simultaneously speak or type in English (to the audience) have a very difficult job. Most of us could never do it. The chyron text is text that's being typed simultaneously in English while the speaker talks in another language. There are so many chances for errors and missed meanings, it boggles my mind. Well I'm trying to say that I'm not surprised that we're getting a "quicky" translation that skips over the nuances.

[vanlassie]

3. What kills me is that MSNBC has run a number of

specials lately, and the closed captions are absolute rubbish. I mean, it’s a prepared special! Nobody proofreads it?

[lpbk2713]

4. One other thing ...

I'm hearing impaired and always use closed captions.

When a guest appears on a news show I never know who they are.
Their name and other info is covered by the closed captioning. So
unless their name is mentioned by voice I never know who they are.

[MuseRider]

5. Same.

I tried moving them to the top then you cannot read any of the headers or it cuts the people off around their eyes and it is just annoying. I tried making them smaller but I am old enough that I could not read them. LOL, what to do? I just wait and hope their name comes up.

[Towlie]

6. Please see my original post again to understand what I meant.

 
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