首先，白宫计划为乔·拜登总统下周在国会的讲话提供美国手语翻译。
拜登白宫一直为其每日新闻发布会、新冠肺炎团队的简报以及总统和副总统的讲话提供美国手语同声传译，这种做法在一定程度上始于去年的一场诉讼。
但下周的演讲将是白宫首次通过其网站和社交媒体渠道的直播向国会提供总统演讲服务。
拜登周三计划在国会联席会议上发表他的第一次重要讲话，在其他年份，除了总统的第一次任职之外，这将被称为国情咨文。
最近几个月的惯例是，口译员将在一个与拜登实际发言的房间分开的房间里工作。第二个视频将出现在白宫公开分享的拜登讲话流旁边的一个小盒子里。
“据我们所知，这是白宫有史以来第一次在向国会发表总统演讲时配备美国手语翻译，”民权组织全国聋人协会(National Association of Threader)的首席执行官霍华德·罗森布拉姆(Howard A. Rosenblum)在一份声明中对美国广播公司(ABC News)表示。
组织年度总统演讲的众议院议长南希·佩洛西办公室没有回答是否会提供自己的美国手语翻译的问题。
不清楚白宫的解释是否会出现在官方直播之外的任何地方。
电视网络播放他们自己的不同于官方录音的地址版本。他们在白宫的新闻发布会上也这样做，因为他们通常不会给美国手语翻译看。
罗森布鲁姆呼吁电视台提供翻译。
“我们赞扬白宫采取措施，确保所有观看的人都能无障碍地观看，包括聋人和重听人，”他说。“我们敦促所有播放广播的电视台在画面中或通过适当大小的画中画插图正确显示翻译，不要模糊图形，以便聋哑人和重听人能够听到正在说的话。”
尽管这是白宫第一次将总统对国会的讲话翻译成美国手语，但白宫的服务并不是第一次。
由于没有官方的手语翻译，非营利的聋人专业艺术网络(D-PAN)近年来开始为政治事件提供手语同声传译。
总部设在底特律提供实时流美国手语翻译为最近两次国情咨文演讲，2016年和2020年总统辩论，以及去年的许多白宫冠状病毒简报会。
“通过这次旅行，我们意识到聋人社区真的没有实时获取信息，因为它正在发生，”肖恩·福布斯，一位共同创建D-PAN的聋人嘻哈艺术家，告诉美国广播公司新闻。“当有人观察总统时，每个人都有自己的解释，自己的观点，自己的看法。对我们来说，提供信息以使人们能够形成自己的观点一直很重要。”
《福布斯》称，过去美国国情咨文中的隐藏式字幕“很糟糕”，他对白宫计划今年提供的访问权限表示欢迎。
“对我们来说，在这样的平台上看到手语真的意味着整个世界，”他说。“因为如果白宫正在这么做，那么其他所有人都应该这么做。”
但是今年早些时候，白宫面临审查过程的问题对于它一直使用的口译员来说，在第一次与拜登的新闻秘书Jen Psaki的简报一起出现后，发现他是极右翼视频的频繁口译员，包括一些包含错误信息和阴谋论的视频。
在美国全国聋人协会(National Association of聋人)和五名美国聋人提起成功诉讼后，白宫直到秋季才开始在时任总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的简报中纳入美国手语翻译。
11月，一名联邦法官表示，白宫必须在冠状病毒简报会上提供解释。美国手语翻译长期以来一直与全国各地的许多州和地方官员一起出现在他们关于大流行过程的简报会上，但不是在白宫。
Psaki在1月份表示，提供解释证明了“本届政府的无障碍和包容努力”
在聋人和重听人社区的成员确定第一名口译员是希瑟·梅肖(Heather Mewshaw)并强调她以前的工作是口译特朗普政府事件和其他右翼视频后，她没有再次出现在白宫简报会上。
白宫没有回答以下问题:自那以后，它可能如何改变了审查程序，白宫如何监督口译员并确保他们的准确性，以及口译员是否被要求事先了解简报会上出现的主题。
In 1st, White House to provide American Sign Language interpretation for Biden address to Congress
In a first, the White House plans to provide American Sign Language interpretation for President Joe Biden's address to Congress next week.
The Biden White House has been providing simultaneous ASL interpretation for its daily news conferences, briefings by its COVID-19 team and remarks by the president and vice president, a practice that began, in part, last year following a lawsuit.
But next week's address will be the first in which any White House has provided the service for a presidential address to Congress, via a live stream on its website and social media channels.
Biden on Wednesday plans to deliver his first major speech to a joint session of Congress, which in other years -- beside a president's first in office -- would be referred to as a State of the Union address.
As has been the practice in recent months, the interpreter will work out of a room separate from where Biden will actually speak. A second video feed will appear in a small box alongside the stream of Biden's remarks that the White House shares publicly.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is a historical first for the White House to have an American Sign Language interpreter during a Presidential address to Congress," Howard A. Rosenblum, the chief executive of the National Association of the Deaf, a civil rights group, told ABC News in a statement.
The office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which organizes the annual presidential addresses, did not respond to questions about whether it would be providing its own ASL interpretation.
It was not clear whether the White House's interpretation would appear anywhere beyond its own, official live stream.
Television networks broadcast their own version of the address different from the official recording. They do the same for White House press conferences, for which they typically do not show the ASL interpreter.
Rosenblum called on television stations to make the interpretation available.
"We commend the White House for taking steps to ensure accessibility for all who are watching, including deaf and hard of hearing people," he said. "We urge all TV stations carrying the broadcast to properly display the interpreter in frame or via an appropriately sized picture-in-picture inset without obscuring graphics so that deaf and hard of hearing people can access what is being said."
The White House's service will not be the first time a presidential address to Congress has been interpreted into ASL, though, despite it being the first time the White House has done so.
With no official ASL interpretation available, the nonprofit Deaf Professional Arts Network, or D-PAN, has in recent years started providing simultaneous sign-language interpretation for political events.
Based in Detroit, D-PANprovided live streamsof ASL interpreters for the last two State of the Union addresses, the 2016 and 2020 presidential debates, and many of last year's White Housecoronavirusbriefings.
"We realized through this journey that the deaf community just really wasn't getting information in real time, as it was happening," Sean Forbes, a deaf hip-hop artist who co-founded D-PAN, told ABC News. "When somebody watches the president, everybody has their own interpretation, their own opinion, their own view. And it's always been important to us to present information so that people can shape their own opinions."
Forbes said that the closed captioning available on State of the Union broadcasts in the past has been "awful" and that he welcomed the access the White House planned to provide this year.
"It means the world to us, really, to see sign language on a platform like that," he said. "Because if the White House is doing it, then everybody else should be doing it."
But earlier this year, the White Housefaced questions about its vetting processfor the interpreters it has been using, after the first to appear alongside a briefing by Biden's press secretary, Jen Psaki, was revealed to be a frequent interpreter of far-right videos, including some containing misinformation and conspiracy theories.
The White House only began including ASL interpreters alongside its briefings in the fall, under then-President Donald Trump, following a successful lawsuit filed by the National Association of the Deaf and five deaf Americans.
In November, a federal judge said the White House had to provide the interpretation at coronavirus briefings. ASL interpreters had long appeared with many state and local officials around the country during their briefings over the course of the pandemic, but not at the White House.
Psaki said in January that providing interpretation demonstrated "this administration's accessibility and inclusion efforts."
After members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community identified the first interpreter as Heather Mewshaw and highlighted her previous work interpreting Trump administration events and other right-wing videos, she did not appear for a White House briefing again.
The White House did not respond to questions about how it may have changed its vetting processes since then, how the White House oversees the interpreters and ensures their accuracy, and whether the interpreters are required to have any prior knowledge of the subject matter that comes up at briefings.
