Court Reporting Research Paper

Court Reporting Throughout History

Court Reporting dates all the way back to 1600 B.C. Court Reporters still play an important part in society today, just as they did hundreds of years ago. They help with everything from correctly transcribing testimony to the closed captioning on television. Yet, court reporting is a job that requires lots of dedication, time, and money. The cost of court reporting school today for a three-year program cost about $16,381 with tuition and books. "It cost about $10,000 to get the required associates degree" (Marshall, Susan 1). That was around 17 years ago when she got her degree, which shows how the cost of schooling is going up. In this paper I will discuss the history of court reporting, the schooling required, the cost of starting up, and court reporting in the job force today.

In The Culture of Stenography Timeline it says, "The father of stenography, Marcus Tullius Tiro, former slave of Cicero, developed a shorthand system for recording orations in the Roman Senate. His symbol, the ampersand (&), remains in use" (1). Stenography is the art of writing in shorthand, "shorthand is a method of writing rapidly, by substituting characters, abbreviations, or symbols for letters, words or phrases" (History of Shorthand 1). Stenography has been changed many times over the years with Marcus Tullius Tero being just one of the founders. Cuneiform was considered a type of shorthand and was used as far back as 1600 B.C. Shorthand was created for the purpose of making it easier to record anything said that may want to be referred to at a later date. "In 1588, Timothe Bright, "The Father of Modern Shorthand," published his first method of shorthand, employing 500 symbols. Elizabeth I granted him a royal patent" (Culture of Stenography Timeline 1). This was a huge amount of symbols compared to what we have today, but it was a vast improvement over having to write down every single word spoken. The fact that Queen Elizabeth granted Bright a patent shows how important an idea that shorthand was. Then in 1837, Isaac Pitman developed an even more sophisticated system of shorthand. "Isaac Pitman developed the first shorthand system based on phonetics" (Culture of Stenography Timeline 1). "It consisted of 25 single consonants, 24 double consonants, and 16 vowel sounds" (History of Shorthand 2). This method was found to be used by almost all reporters in 1889. Not only did reporters use this though there are also other jobs that use the method of shorthand just as much; some of the jobs are journalist, secretary positions and anyone else who is required to copy down a large amount of information in a short period of time. "The Pitman System...was followed 50 years later by Gregg shorthand, which still is taught in some areas for non-reporting uses" (History of Court Reporting 1). Note that although the symbols helped from having to write out the whole word, it was improved immensely when the stenograph machine was invented. A man named Miles Bartholomew invented this almost 50 years later in 1879. This was, of course, improved upon by other people but for a time it was the best thing there was. Today, there are machines that require no paper. It has a screen on it where the paper tray would be and consist of a hard drive, compact flash drive and hooks up to a computer. This makes it much easier to transport the machine and its less hassle when a reporter is transcribing a job, as they don't have to worry about running out of paper.

In the "Culture of Stenography Timeline" one of the most beneficial events was the introduction of realtime reporting:

In 1985 "Courtroom of the Future" unveiled in Michigan, employed "realtime reporting," the instantaneous translation of a court reporters stenographic notes into English. The judge and litigants network with the court reporter's computer to view the realtime feed of the unfolding proceedings as well as transcripts of previous proceedings. Realtime reporting steadily becomes commonplace in the courtroom.

This is a very popular method for most court reporters personal use as it synchs the audio directly with the words so as they are editing it is much easier. Court reporters also have to be careful when they use realtime because if they have any words in their dictionaries that would offend and they accidentally stroke a key wrong and it comes up on the screen for an attorney or judge to see it would be quite embarrassing. In the courtroom realtime is mainly used for the judge and lawyers. Realtime reporting also requires no certification as a freelance court reporter. The next time that court reporting was used to help a large amount of people was in 1998. "In 1998 The Federal Communications Commission mandated that by the year 2006 all television programming will be captioned, presently done through realtime technology" (Culture of Stenography Timeline 2). This is a useful mandate for many people who suffer from hearing problems or just for those times when a person is trying to watch television in a noisy room and cannot hear over all the noise.

Reporters are considered to be one of the most important people in a courtroom upon which the Judge and lawyers often rely on to accurately read back previous testimony. The lawyers often will have the court reporter read back part of a witness's testimony to catch them in a lie or to remind them of previous testimony. Without all of the important contributions from different people, it would be an impossible task to make sure that everything is written down correctly which would make certain things almost out of the question to prove. So, from 1600 B.C. with cuneiform to today, the technology in court reporting is continuously improving to make the jobs of reporters and the people who rely on them much easier.

"Becoming a court reporter requires a commitment of time, effort and money" (Atkinson-Baker 1). To become a court reporter requires at least an associate's degree, and with continuing education, you can get certificated at a different level of court reporting. Most programs range from two to three years, but for some it takes longer depending on your ability to learn. "Most of the practice is in the skill of live transcription. You start out slow and then build up your speed, accuracy and stamina to a point where you can take down hours of rapid speech" (Atkinson-Baker 1). This is a very essential skill as some jobs can be hundreds of pages long and go on for hours at a time with very few breaks. A court reporter is required to type a certain number of words a minute before they can graduate with their degree. "Programs