Inside VITAC’s Role in Making the Democratic National Convention ‘the Most Accessible’ in History

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This year’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) is happening at Chicago’s United Center this week. The opening night festivities included speeches from Golden State Warriors and Team USA men’s basketball head coach Steve Kerr, Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and President Biden. I saw bits and pieces of every speech last night; as a disabled American voter, I’m keenly interested in finding out how the Harris-Walz ticket plans to support the disability community should they win the White House over Donald Trump come early November.

One aspect of the DNC you likely won’t hear anything about in most, if not all, mainstream news coverage is the accessibility of it. My friend and colleague Sara Luterman at The 19th News wrote an extensive piece on this very topic earlier this month, noting the DNC does feature “new wide-ranging considerations” for greater accessibility for the 850 attendees with disabilities, which include 560 delegates who identify as disabled. Robin Jones, accessibility advisor to the Democratic National Convention Committee, told Luterman in part the DNC Committee is “trying to be inclusive of everyone’s needs” while adding there are a “variety of different people with different disabilities attending.”

Captioning company VITAC, who’s been covered in this column before, put out a press release earlier this week ahead of the DNC kicking off where it announced it was enhancing accessibility at the event by way of live, multi-language captions, dubbing, and audio descriptions. The company touts its contribution in the lede, writing it is playing an “important role” in shaping this year’s DNC “the most accessible in the DNC’s history.” VITAC notes it is the “largest provider of captioning products and services in North America” and added it has a “long, successful history” of making governmental and other political events accessible to the disability constituency. VITAC, it boasted, was one of the first companies to being live captioning to such conventions as the DNC; it captioned the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.

In a brief interview with me conducted earlier this week, VITAC general manager Doug Karlovits explained the DNC made a commitment to “put on the most accessible convention in history” and said it was imperative that Kamala Harris’ message be spread to “as many Americans as possible.” In order to realize its grand vision, the DNC sought a partner who possessed both the experiential and technical chops to help make it happen. That perfect partner, of course, was found in the VITAC team.

“It’s a pretty big undertaking,” Karlovits said of the work to make the DNC accessible to all. “It’s all being done remotely, and we have a direct feed to the United Center’s audio. We’re providing live English captions and live audio description for DNC viewers across all their different streaming channels and broadcast outlets. Our translators and voiceover artists are providing live English-to-Spanish dubbing on the fly during the convention while our multilingual captioners, listening and working directly from that dubbed audio, are providing live Spanish captions.”

In a nod to equality, Karlovits told me Deaf and hard-of-hearing people “increasingly want and expect access to” things like the DNC—or live sporting events or even a Taylor Swift concert. Ensuring such events are accessible to all, he said, guarantees everyone, regardless of ability, will be able to enjoy them. Specific to the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, Karlovits noted accommodations such as ASL interpretation and captions are “essential to understanding spoken content.” Likewise, things like audio descriptions as equally essential to Blind and low vision people in terms of understanding information that’s presented visually.

Karlovits said the cries for accessibility is part of a “broader movement” towards equality and inclusivity regarding access to information. Slowly but surely, the disability community is getting its due—deservedly so.

“By providing accessible services, organizers not only comply with legal requirements but also recognize the importance of including all community members in important societal and political conversations,” he said. “This helps foster a more equitable society where everyone can engage with and contribute to key discussions and decisions.”

When asked what VITAC’s goals are for this week, Karlovits said the company is “thrilled” accessibility has been thrust onto such a big stage. This means a lot to Karlovits and crew from a business standpoint, but especially as an advocate for and ally of the disability community. VITAC’s overarching goal, he said, has always been to “provide the highest quality access services for the communities that rely on them.”

“We love the fact that in all walks of life and across multiple industries—whether it be education, corporate, government, or legal—we’re seeing people recognize the benefits of accessibility and take proactive steps for inclusion,” Karlovits said of the moral of the DNC’s inclusion story.

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