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With the advancement in technology, computer-aided transcription, or CAT, has allowed the skilled reporter to enter many new and exciting career opportunities. Not only has the product of the court reporter in the courtroom been affected in providing a transcript instantaneously, the highly developed skill of "realtime" will enable the reporter to enter into new and exciting careers. Here are just a few highlights of some of the many options available in the reporting profession.
Medical or Legal Transcription
The rapid writing skills taught by reporter-training programs can also be used for the transcription of medical or legal material. The information is dictated onto tapes or dictation systems, and the transcriptionist plays back the material and prepares the text for medical or legal reports.
Persons with basic court reporter skills and a cat system can enter the material much faster than traditional typists.
Rapid Data Entry
Court reporting skills can also be used for data entry or word processing in almost any field. Using the steno machine for word processing is significantly faster than normal typing. While the fastest typists can in put text at about 100 words a minute on a computer, persons trained as court reporters can input text much more quickly -- 200 words per minute and faster.
Rapid data entry operators are employed by hospitals, insurance companies and many other businesses with mounds of data to be entered into their computer systems.
Captioning
This is an exciting field that has recently been expanding rapidly due to recent legislation. This is a "realtime" service in which a reporter, using a highly developed skill that requires special training, monitors newscasts or television programs and uses stenographic keystrokes to capture every word. The steno machine is connected to a state-of-the-art computer with special closed-captioning software. The software translates the strokes into English sentences that are automatically encoded in the broadcast signal and appear on the viewer's television screen in just a few seconds.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 empowered the Federal Communications Commission to regulate closed captioning. In August 1997, the FCC implemented Section 305, which required that 95 percent of all new programming must be captioned by January 1, 2006.
Court reporters also work with hearing-impaired students, and individuals learning English as a second language, captioning high school and college classes as well as providing transcripts at the end of the sessions.
Cyber-conferencing
Court reporters are capturing sales meetings, press conferences, product introductions and technical training seminars and instantly transmitting them to all parties involved via computers. As participants speak into telephones or microphones, a court reporter translates their words in realtime. The words appear on everyone's computers, accompanied by any relevant documents or graphics.
Unlike speech recognition systems that have high error rates and are unable to comprehend multiple speakers, court reporters write accurately at speeds in excess of 200 words per minutes. In addition, their technology enables participants to receive text via the Internet, an online service or their own intranet, all without any special hardware or even if utilizing a notebook computer with slow modem connections.
Scoping
Scopists who work for court reporters can be seen as the equivalent of paralegals who work for attorneys. Generally, scopists are utilized by court reporters to edit and proofread transcripts while court reporters are working in court or taking deposition.
The scopist takes a rough copy of the proceeding -- whether it is on disk, has been sent as an e-mail file or is simultaneously displayed on a computer connected to the court reporter's machine -- and reads the stenograph-to-English translation to check for any "mistranslates," which are homonyms ("here" instead of "hear") or other words such as proper names or technical terms that were not in the court reporter's computer dictionary. Scopists make any necessary edits, ensure the transcript is in the requested formats and send the transcript back to the court reporter. In the case of simultaneous display, scopists make corrections or highlight any questions right there as the transcript scrolls by on the computer screen.
Scoping is an ideal career for a person who needs or prefers to work at home. All the work is completed using computer software that can easily be transferred via online services.
In conclusion, the possibilities are endless in which this skill may be utilized in the employment market. A reporter who has mastered this skill will be able to choose the hours spent at work and working environment at the optimum amount of pay.
--Diana Constancio
Portions of this article were taken from the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) pamphlet "Court Reporting as a Career." It is available from the Court Reporting Department upon request.