As technology changes so does the court reporting profession. A growing trend in courtrooms across the country is the use of real-time rather than traditional transcription. Like everywhere else, Tennessee court reporters have to keep up with increased demands.

Traditional Court Transcripts

Historically, Tennessee court reporters kept records of court proceedings using stenographic techniques. In order to keep up with the fast pace of conversation they used shorthand script.

The invention of stenographic machines made their jobs easier. Using a special keyboard they could record symbols that represented phonetic sounds, allowing them to type even unfamiliar words as fast as they were spoken. Variations of these machines are still in use today.

The output from a stenographic machine is gibberish to people who aren't court reporters. Often one reporter can't read the output of another as each person adopts an individual system of abbreviations and shortcuts to keep up. Part of the duties of Tennessee court reporters was to transcribe these confusing symbols into clear transcripts that could be provided to the attorneys, the judge, or other interested parties.

Closed Captioning Created New Opportunities

The captioning of television programs for the hearing impaired has its roots in Tennessee. The First National Conference on Television for the Hearing Impaired was held in Nashville in 1971 to discuss the technologies for closed captioning.

The captioning system struggled in the 1970s but finally the first closed captioned television program was broadcast by the National Captioning Institute (NCI) on March 16, 1980. At first captioning was limited to pre-recorded programs, leaving studios plenty of time to create the captions. However the hearing impaired community demanded access to live programs as well and in 1982 the NCI developed real-time captioning.

In order to meet the demand of captioning live events, court reporters across the country were recruited and many Tennessee court reporters left the courtrooms to work at television stations.

Courts Implement Real-Time Transcription

Over time, court systems saw the advantage of real-time access to trial transcripts. The judge and attorneys can not only review the transcript during the session but can add their own notes to the proceedings.

It allows hard of hearing litigants to fully participate in their own court proceedings without the use of an interpreter. Deaf jurors get just as much information as their hearing counterparts. This change owes a lot to new software that allows a court reporter's stenographic output to be instantly translated to clear English text.

Tennessee court reporters have had to adapt to these new demands, implementing this new transcription software and customizing it to their unique stenographic techniques. They also have to increase their speed as court reporters have to take down testimony at 180 words per minute while a real-time reporter has be able to operate at 225 words per minute. This new real-time reporting offers transcription services that a recording device never could and gives judges and attorneys access to more information than they've ever had before.