Today’s Morning Buzz is brought to you by Dana Healy, Chief Operations Officer for Tightrope Media Systems. Connect with Dana on LinkedIn.
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Across the country, local governments are exploring ways to make public meetings more inclusive, transparent, and engaging. And now, thanks to updated Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidance and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA, the topic of closed captioning is front and center. Some municipalities will need to meet these new standards as early as April 2026.
Comms teams, this isn’t just about checking a box; it’s about rising to the challenge, collaborating across departments, and getting excited about everything there is to learn as you build digital media that’s inclusive and truly serves your residents. When done right, captioning becomes a highly visible expression of your commitment to equity, creativity, and public trust. So let’s get started with some key terms and requirements.
Captioning Key Terms
- Closed Captions are text that appears on-screen to represent spoken dialogue and important sounds, like [applause] or [laughter]. Viewers can turn them on or off.
- Open Captions are text on-screen that is burned into the video. They are commonly used on social media.
- Live Captioning is generated from transcription happening in real time during your event. This used to require a human transcriptionist, which was accurate but costly. Today, live captions are more budget-friendly thanks to artificial intelligence (AI)–powered speech recognition.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)–driven Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) tools are software systems that simulate human understanding of speech to create video captions from live or recorded transcripts. These tools can learn and improve over time, and often support multiple languages.
What’s Required by WCAG 2.1 AA?
- Captions for live and pre-recorded video on your website and mobile apps.
- Audio descriptions (narration of visual content) for most pre-recorded content, with some exceptions.
A Note on Audio Descriptions
Not sure if your city council meetings require audio descriptions for compliance? Here’s a helpful rule of thumb:
If someone could understand the full context of the video just by listening from another room, it likely doesn’t require a lot of audio description. However, if key information is conveyed visually, audio descriptions are probably needed. That said, always consult your legal advisor before marking this off your compliance checklist!
You might be wondering, can’t AI just do this for me? Auto-generated audio descriptions are getting closer to reality, but for now, they still require human review to ensure accuracy. That added step makes them more expensive than automated captioning and translation solutions, at least for the moment.
The good news? This is the perfect time to prepare. Make sure your current digital media tools are capable of supporting audio descriptions when you’re ready to add them. And start encouraging staff, council members, and others to describe key visuals as they go. It’s a simple but powerful way to build more inclusive communications, and a great habit to grow as part of your accessibility journey.
Accessibility Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated, If You’re Proactive
We get it; juggling legal guidance, technical workflows, and production schedules is tough. But you don’t have to go it alone.
Creative and dependable solutions exist to streamline your video accessibility strategy. Many cities are already using automation platforms that plug right into their live streams, cable broadcasts, or online video hubs. These tools offer captioning, transcription, multilingual options, and support for audio description tracks, all in one place.
To help you confidently evaluate vendors and ensure they can support your accessibility goals, we’ve created a vendor accessibility checklist and sample RFP template you can use. Click here to email those resources to yourself.
Build Something Better Together
Sure, accessible government video content fills a legal mandate and has the power to strengthen your community, but just as importantly, it encourages internal collaboration.
Launching a closed captioning initiative is a powerful opportunity to align IT, AV, legal, and communications teams around a shared goal. It brings departments together to create solutions that are visible, actionable, and deeply impactful. We hosted a conversation on this topic earlier this year, and you can watch the replay here.
With the right tools and a common purpose, teams can not only meet accessibility goals, they can build more inclusive, effective, and trusted public communications together.