History And Evolution Of Court Reporting Methods

Since its inception, court reporting has come a long way. Reports today have much more tools available to them. In the beginning, all they had was stenography machines. Today 21st-century technology is integrated into their overall workflow. This allows reporters to be much more efficient than they were in the past.

The stenograph machine was introduced to the reporting world in 1913. The device lets reporters press keys that created characters in code onto scrolls of paper. Whenever a written transcript was needed of a proceeding, the text of a document would be transcribed by the stenographer so that it could be read by the receiving party. The combination of the typed transcripts and stenographic machine recording became the new court reporting standard.

Personal computers emerged as the latest and greatest new technology of the business world during the 1970s and 1980s. The introduction of computer-aided transcription (CAT) allows stenographic machines and computers to be integrated. This allowed keystrokes to be recorded to the internal memory of the computer or a removable storage device with the scrolling paper rolls still being implemented as well. The computer could then translate the saved record. When a written transcript is needed the text will be edited by the court reported, and the finalized transcript will be made available to distribute.

Now that more powerful computers are available, with the capability of processing information much faster, CAT systems can translate a digitized record as the record is being captured onto the device. That allows the unedited text to be viewed right away. Corrections can be made by the court reporter for producing the final document. That kind of stenography is called real-time stenography.

There are some reporters that use voice writing. This involves the court reporter speaking into the voice silence, which is a hand-held mask that has a microphone inside of it. The testimony is repeated by the reporter into the hand-held mask. An audio recording is created of the proceedings. The courtroom participants are unable to hear any of it.

Analog recording technology allows the spoken word to be captured and preserved to tape as well as other forms of media. Tape recorders were used during court proceedings in the early 1960s. Magnetic tape was heavily used at that time and is still used today by some tribunals. That is mainly in situations where transcripts of the proceedings are not needed. A more recent practice is video recordings, which are now being done to capture proceedings. The courtroom has to be outfitted with the right equipment for video and audio to be captured. The equipment is operated by individuals who work at the courthouse. When a transcript is needed a court reporter plays the audio back, and it is transcribed to produce a written document.

Video and audio recording technology have continued to grow and mature like computers have. Digital recordings can now be produced in court proceedings by operators who have many more advantages compared to tape. When digital technology records are made of proceeding, they can be saved onto the hard drive of a computer or burnt onto a DVD or CD. Whenever a written transcript is needed the recording will be gone over by a court reporter and the audio will be transcribed to produce a written document. To capture the video and audio effectively, the right equipment must be used and placed strategically around the courtroom close to the witnesses, attorneys, judges and other parties. A dedicated videographer often provides this kind of service. Court reporting agencies often employ them.

One of the most recent developments in the field is using digital court reporters. With this system, a remote video/audio system records the video and audio to a server. The digital court reporter can then access it at an offsite facility from their workstation. Then the digital court reporter tags the case number along with any other information that is relevant to significant events from the proceedings and participant names. The tags are used for indexing information to make the process of getting a transcript produced a lot easier. The court reporter is also able to play the information back while the proceeding is still in progress at the judge's request.