Sunday, July 8, 2012

CALL A SPADE A SPADE

First I would like to address the title of a digital court reporter. Seriously?  Who thought of this term?  This goes to show you how anyone can coin a phrase and others will follow for the simple fact of not ruffling feathers or even allowing themselves to question someone else who is confident about what they speak, even if it is untrue.  A court reporter, in its simplest description, is a verbatim notetaker and can produce the transcript without an audio recording.  The gold standard in court reporting is the stenographic court reporter.  I say this because I am one and I know that I can keep up with a speaker in excess of 225 words per minute.  We use combinations which create phrases that no digital monitor can possibly use to keep up with in the verbatim sense. The digital person can take notes, but they are far from verbatim and have only one method of producing a transcript....a recording. A recording which is sent to another person to transcribe and produce.  So who really is the "court reporter" in this team of typists?  It's a farce to believe this term is anything but a play on words. What is even a larger tragedy is the fact that the savings in dollars is not great enough to warrant the risk that comes with the (inaudibles) that inevitably happen in these transcripts.  The majority of these recordings are outsourced to other countries for transcript production.  The outsourced transcribers are being paid less than stellar amounts to produce these highly important transcripts.  Words are words are words.  They are said every day, but when they are spoken in a legal setting, every word is of utmost importance.  If you are a lawyer or a litigant, be aware of what you are paying for and make it count.  I can't imagine that any attorney would want his client's answer or a judge's ruling to be (inaudible).

9 comments:

  1. Indeed!! Thank you for articulating the obvious. I couldn't have said it better!

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  2. Thank you, Marge. I feel the obvious is getting lost in all of this marketing smoke. Keep watching!

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  3. I find it interesting that you think you are the be all and end all because you use a stenotype machine. When I was a young reporter I was broken in by pen writers, and they really looked down their noses at us. Times change. Technology changes. Stenomask has been around as long as I can remember. As a stenotype reporter, of course I'm prejudiced, but I have to keep an open mind. And FYI, the old typists taught young reporters their art. They were incredibly smart and talented people who made us look good on paper. I never worked with back up audio, but many court reporters all over this country wouldn't be caught dead without it.

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  4. Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, I find it interesting that you are anonymous for starters. Then you want to give me a history lesson on keeping the record. You call yourself a stenotype reporter, yet you are throwing in my face the fact that I call stenotype the gold standard. Hmmm, what is the point you are trying to make with this nonsensical comment to my blog post?

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    1. My point is you're insulting a lot of people who don't deserve to be insulted, like transcribers. I know highly qualified court reporters who are making their living today transcribing digital trials. They're not exactly outsourced to India, non English speaking typists. They're just court reporters working in states that have already adopted digital reporting. And yes, I've listened to some of the recordings and I could make an excellent record from what I heard. But I have many years experience listening. I will remain anonymous so you won't be embarrassed.

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  5. Here's a link for you. Read it. Digest it. These are past presidents of the national having a discussion. I've never met Tom Runfola, but he's my generation - stenotypists battling for respect, the birth of CAT, the birth of real time. If you don't know your history you're doomed to repeat it. http://www.ncra.org/News/content.cfm?ItemNumber=9537

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  6. Anonymous's point, muted as it is just by the fact that he/she is hiding his/her identity (well I am, too, sort of but there's my picture and a lot of people know that marge201 is Marge Teilhaber and actually so are you, Court Reporting Blogging, but it's your blog so you get a pass), seems to be -- well, other than to be a contrarian and a bit hostile, I'm not clear what it is. He/she apparently doesn't agree with the "call a spade a spade" post. OK, then! I reiterate my opinion that the points made in that excellent missive are specifically pertinent to the situation at hand, and I thank you again for taking the time to write it.

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  7. Marge, thank you, again. My anonymity keeps my telphone quiet.

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  8. Anonymous, I did take the time to go to the link you provided. I did not read the very long string of commentary for several reasons. Regardless of the digital argument, which has so many factors to it, it does not change the fact that a digital monitor is NOT a court reporter. Anyone can use that term as they choose. It's a free country. I am calling a spade a spade. A court RECORDER is NOT a court REPORTER. A transcriber is not a court reporter. This team of typists should not call themselves court reporters. You don't like my opinion, you are entitled. Your identity will not be a cause for my embarrassment, but only yours. Your identity really doesn't matter to me anyway. There are so many people who have been on the stenographic side of this profession who are going to the digital side out of pure G-R-E-E-D. It is a huge money-making disaster happening to the court reporting profession. If you want more of my viewpoints on these topics, then I suggest you subscribe to my blog and keep reading. The other thing I would like to point out is you talk about court transcribing. I have also heard these court recordings. While the system allows you to isolate microphones in a courtroom, this does not control when counsel walks up to the bench and walks further from their own microphone, but not quite up to the judge's microphone, so you can't hear that attorney. You also cannot control the ambient noise that comes from the room in general, especially the echoing that happens in a courtroom. Also the multitrack system has some overlapping of the recordings giving the audio an effect that can make hearing the words difficult. Court reporting is about precision, not a "good enough" record. Might I add that in a courtroom, people tend to be more civilized because they are in front of a judge and even then they become unruly. A deposition setting is a different ballgame. A court reporter can only control counsel for so long and it cannot be left to a microphone to capture the arguments. If you truly know the profession, you will understand what I mean as far as handling that situation with counsel. I prefer not to educate others on that topic in this platform. I would also like to add that the link you sent is from four years back. Although the same topics may apply today, the landscape is vastly different than four years ago. I am not here to argue with you or anyone else for that matter. This is my blog and if you don't like my topics, I suggest you not read it. If you have something educational to add, I am all ears. If you are here to try and incite me or change my mind, it won't work. My opinion is that the digital thing you call reporting is not worth of the title of court reporting.

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