I think the best argument for having government press conferences with a video of somebody doing sign language is that it underscores that something might be a super serious situation that literally everybody needs to know about as a matter of immediate life and death and it would get peoples' attention who might not otherwise notice that something was serious. That benefit is arguably nullified though when every press conference has them.
Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies. The gesturers' motions can be super distracting to the point that it makes the normal political process harder to focus on. It's just distracting enough (IMO) that important details about the normal everyday government business can be missed.
> That benefit is arguably nullified though when every press conference has them... Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies.
The benefit is including deaf people, not just making sure that they're able to comprehend emergency alerts (though that is also important). While I agree that the system could be refined, another part of me likes it because it gives visibility to something that the vast majority of hearing people wouldn't know about otherwise.
Anecdotally, my partner's parents can read and write English but aren't fluent in it. The prevalence of interpreters in the past few years has made things accessible to them that wouldn't have been in the past. From what I've heard, they aren't alone in their experience.
Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies. The gesturers' motions can be super distracting to the point that it makes the normal political process harder to focus on. It's just distracting enough (IMO) that important details about the normal everyday government business can be missed.