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The year of 2001 before the NCRA Annual Convention in New Orleans was the first time I had personally hit the "pavement" of the Internet and helped on a national scale to defeat two voice writer amendments. I was nervous at first about going on the CR Forum and the NCRA Forum to discuss my opinions. You see, everyone has differing opinions on this subject. It's a subject that created controversy for the nine months before the convention and still creates some rifts in our community today and into the future. From the beginning, there was discord. Machine reporters were calling oral reporters Stenomaskers (CRCB calls it Oral Stenography in Texas. Stenomask is a mask brand name.) A Stenomasker is a person who has a mask over their nose/mouth area, speaks into the mask and his/her voice is recorded. They have a dual track recorder, one for their voice and one for the proceedings. Well, many of us were slammed for calling a Stenomasker by the name "Stenomasker" or "masker." We were told two years ago they decided to call themselves "voice writers." The reasoning behind the name "voice writer" was a claim that their own language and abbreviations were "verbal symbols," thus writing. So, as you can see, this debate started off on a sour note and continued downhill. Those of us who were very vocal against the amendments were called an "elitist," protectionist," and "an ostrich with its head in the sand." Of course, I was a protectionist. My goal was to protect my livelihood and to protect other machine writers. Now, many felt these "voice writers" (VWs) were nothing but glorified ER (electronic recording) operators because of using tapes to produce the record. While the debate was going strong on the Internet, we were informed by the VW amendment advocates that VWs can realtime like a machine writer and are doing so in the legal community. I, being one to always look at technology, was curious about this aspect of their claim to be as good as a machine writer. At the NCRA convention, there was one session entitled "Never Say Never." This session was lead by two machine writers who authored the NCRA voice writer amendments, one voice/machine writer and one voice-only writer. Each panelist gave a short speech of why they believe in voice writing. Towards the end of the hour, there was a Q&A session. There were many intelligent questions being answered in a professional way until one lady stood up to ask questions. One question was: "What is the percentage of voice writers who actually become a reporter?" Why was this an important question? Voice writers claim their style of reporting takes talent and not everyone can do it. Fact is, anyone and everyone CAN do voice writing. If everyone can do it, then it's not a talent like a machine writer. Another question was: "How many schools are there for voice writing in the US?" Why was this an important question? They claim that voice writing can end the shortage of reporters. Yet they cannot keep schools open. Most of their education is done by correspondence course. (Houston Community College has opened a pilot voice writer program.) To these questions the two voice writers became very belligerent and said the questions were ridiculous. One attendee shouted from the audience, "If the voice writing technology was so good and comparable to machine writing, why didn't they VW realtime the whole session so we could form our own opinion and see the technology?" The panelist got very defensive and stated she was doing a demo of AudioScribe in the next hour and for us to come see it. I decided to go up and see the demo. From the start the realtime was sloppy. This person was supposed to be a premier voice writer. She does realtime in a legal setting with attorneys hooked up. What I saw was devastating, embarrassing and not realtime as we know it. The owner of AudioScribe was giving the lecture. The whole program was canned. She knew the exact lecture and still had shoddy realtime. The audience started asking questions. A participant took a mic around so the voice writer could hear the questions and be able to realtime. The VW never wrote a word that was asked out of the audience. This greatly influenced me. After watching Mark Kislingbury just two days before write everything that was stated in an emotionally-charged open meeting, having been in machine realtime demos in the past and being a realtime court reporter and CART provider, I am used to the machine writer taking the plunge and writing everything. A person asked for the VW to dictate out of the newspaper and play it back from her computer audio file so we could hear the "verbal symbols" claim. The VW and Mr. Kaufman exchanged worried looks and then he saved her by giving her a page from his script. As I stated, this was supposed to be a demonstration of this great technology. The writer did not dictate the whole hour. She would play with the keys on her computer. The reasoning given to us of why the words were not coming out right, e.g., Chris equaled grass, was she had finished the "Never say Never" seminar and was out of breath. This was an untruth because she casually strode by me and was in her seat 10 minutes before the demostarted. Plus, the "Never say Never" session lasted an hour and a half; most legal proceedings that I know of last much longer than that. Now, I do believe this technology will get better. I do believe there will probably be a niche for this type of system, but not now and not in Texas. Here comes my protectionism again. If you look at the states who have either majority Stenomask or a split of Stenomask/machine reporters, their fee structure is well below ours. Why you might ask? Their schooling lasts only six months. An example is HCC's pilot voice writer program which is 28-29 credit hours. In contrast, Alvin Community College's scopist certification program is 28 credit hours. To be a machine writer, we go to college now for around four years, which includes two English classes. We usually come out a well-rounded court reporter. Now, would you say that a Stenomasker/VW has the same talent, skill and knowledge that a machine writer does? No, of course not. So, they can charge less. BUT, fellow reporters, VWs will be graduating from HCC and a school in Dallas. They will be trying to infiltrate our market. At the NCRA national convention a list of 100 Texas court reporting firms stated in writing they would not hire a Stenomasker/VW. The time is quickly approaching for these firms and individual court reporters to put their convictions to the test. The legal community has always thought we make too much money. What are they going to think when someone has schooling for six months? Insurance companies are going to love them. What will this do to our profession? Lower the rates and our stature. I hope this article has explained Stenomask/voice writing. We shouldn't ever turn our backs on technology. We shouldn't ever be an ostrich with our heads in the sand. What we can do, though, is make sure our standards, page rates and professional stature is held to the highest position possible. That's what we can and should do. That is a protectionist. Some sites on the Internet to search for posts on voice writers or Stenomaskers are CR Forum, go.compuserve.com/courtreporters; National Court Reporter Association (NCRA) Forum, verbatimreporters.com; a 2001 amendments website, voicewriteramendment.com; and National Verbatim Reporters Association (NVRA) for Stenomaskers, nvra.org. Go to these sites, see demonstrations at conventions and become informed and prepared for the time that the battle begins again. Epilogue: August 3, 2001 -- During the Member Business Meeting, by an almost four to one vote members rejected full membership for voice writers in NCRA. The discussion, which lasted more than an hour, involved several motions from the floor: one objecting to the consideration of the first proposed amendment; another that would have sent the amendment back to the Constitution and Bylaws Committee for further review. Neither motion was accepted by the membership, which instead decided to debate the issue. Some of the comments made during the ensuing discussion approached the issue with a new perspective. Other comments reflected the positions and opinions expressed in the JCR and NCRA's Online Forum since the proposed amendments were submitted by three voting members of NCRA and announced in January 2001. Following that decision, the issue of associate membership for voice writers came to the floor. A motion from the floor objected to consideration of this amendment, and slightly more than 70 percent of those attending agreed. Thus, the proposed amendment to give voice writers associate membership status was pulled from the agenda. The Editor (Back to Table of Contents) |