CNN: We shouldn't have to add captions

CNN told a California court yesterday that it shouldn't be required to provide closed-captioning for every video clip on its website. Lawyers for the Time Warner network says it would slow down its ability to report the news, add cost and make the information less accurate. In fact, CNN argued that the requirement is a violation of its First Amendment rights because the network has been singled out while the FCC is working on new online closed-captioning regulations CNN wants the Ninth Circuit to reverse a lower court ruling in favor of the Greater LA Council on Deafness. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of deaf Californians who are hoping to set a precident for the entire news industry. CNN already provides captioning on its television broadcast, as required by law, but does not do so on its website. New FCC rules will soon require recently captioning for professionally produced online videos, including newscasts, but the regulations do not cover short clips of less than 3 minutes or so.