Closed Captioning Pioneer Dies

The founding president of the National Captioning Institute has died in Virginia. John E.D. Ball was 77 years old. A native of Scotland who came to the US in the 1960s, Ball won an Emmy award for his efforts to develop closed captioning for television programs while working for the Public Broadcasting Service. He then became president of the National Captioning Institute, a nonprofit organization working to expand the availability of closed captioning. The first live news broadcasts were captioned during his time at the NCI. In honor of his work, Gallaudet University granted him an honorary degree.