Meet the Unsung Heroes Behind Live TV Closed Captioning (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: I have been informed that next is occasionally on in bars, so attention people watching in bars, you are probably not hearing my voice. You're just seeing the closed captioning at the bottom of the screen. Did you know it's not computer generated? Those words are the fine work of a real life human, like a woman in eastern Colorado who watches TV like it's her job. Steve Stager has her story.

Speaker 2: The small town of Lyman, Colorado, connected to the rest of the country through the interstate that forms its northern border connected to the world. Right? Who would have thought through the small home office of Stacy Potenza and her funny looking keyboard? I don't think outside of a few close friends in Lyman, anybody even in my town understands how it works. You probably don't know much about closed captioning either. Live TV like news, sporting events, conferences. Anything that's live chances are it's somebody like me sitting at home in their pajamas. Stacy opted out of the pajama look for our interview and while we were there, she wasn't doing the TV gig. Instead, she was captioning for a student in a classroom at CU. I'm going to pull up my cheat sheets for the class. Don't ask us what kind of class it was. Oh, this is for aging. It isn't necessary. We didn't really understand what was going on. Stacy, however, did.

Speaker 3: I also love getting to be a perpetual student, getting to learn something new, whether it's through classes or even newscasts and specialty shows across the United States. She probably learns a lot from TV too. With TV, a lot of the times it goes in my ears and out my fingers. Well, there goes my job security. If I'm watching TV and not working, I tend to absorb a lot more. Job security secured. Now that professor talks fast. How on earth does she do that? Well, we have to be certified at 225 words a minute. The average single speaker rate of speech is around 180 word minute. You might think technology would be threatening her job. After all, that Siri is getting pretty good. She's pretty good, though. Anybody who has an iPhone and talks to Siri knows how frustrating it can be to try to get her to hear exactly what you're saying. That makes sense. All right, let's test her listening skills by making her listen to someone who's pretty tough to listen to.

Speaker 2: Kyle Clark.

Speaker 4: If we asked you for pictures of springtime, would you really send us a photo of your skis in a closet? Yes. Everyone is impressed. You have a four piece set. We saw it at Costco too. Chair covers? Somebody got a raise.

Speaker 2: Not bad, Stacey. Not bad. For next, I'm Steve Steger.

Speaker 1: A shout out to whomever, wherever is closed captioning this very program right now.