This Is How A Court Reporter Typewriter Works

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[angelwings]

My mother is a court reporter and whenever she's asked to confirm something from the record, she gets nervous because after doing it for so long she gets in the zone, and she thinks "did I actually write what they said earlier?" And sure enough she always does... always was super impressed it's like she knows a whole other language

[tambert]

Judge: "Can you read back what was said to the court."
Stenographer:

[youtubesresidentfbiagent]

Me before watching this video: “Oh cool, how does it work?”

Me after watching this video: “Oh cool, how does it work?”

[NinjaDuckie]

Former court reporting tech support engineer here. Stenotype is an incredible skill. Typists pay a small fortune for their keyboards and the training and software necessary to read and execute the code they output. And due to being an extremely niche skill, they also have the ability to charge... pretty much what they want. So it's expensive to get into but well worth the payoff if you can manage the output.

We actually did experiment, briefly, with the partial replacement of stenography by voice to text software (we used Dragon but there's a few decent ones). Initial tests were ... less than amazing. We figure that it COULD be done for a long-running case, with the caveat that you'd have to train each speaker with the software for a few hours beforehand, and be edited against the audio afterwards, but at that point, why aren't you just running a stenographer in the room in the first place?

We did have some limited success using voice-to-text for remote depositions where we weren't able to secure a stenographer in time. But as Isabelle says, voice to text technology is nowhere near replicating the accuracy or versatility of a real stenographer.

[fae]

I’ve been studying court reporting for four years including through two minor brain injuries (one of them was when I hit my head on a metal safe and had to have a CAT scan). Right now I’m working on 200wpm

[TigranAbgarjan]

Defendant in court room: *"Hi."*
Court reporter on typewriter:

[alexandralipovich]

My mom did this for 35 years! I used to read to her when I was little and she would practice her stenography.. such a fond memory and a lost art.

[frantisekvasil]

My brain capacity cant handle this bye

[AdamAwesombrero]

But who records what the stenographer is saying when they’re asked to read something back?

[MatthewHarrisLawPLLC]

Before COVID, when we still had in-person hearings, I would frequently introduce my client to the Court Reporter so they could see this process. Court Reporters are essential to our legal system, and educating the public is important!

[caitlinmeeks]

im a court reporter and its literally like learning a different language. There's also multiple ways to spell different words. she spelled "zoo" as "SKAO" but on my machine, if i wanted to spell out "zoo" I would type it as "S*AO". It's complicated when you first learn because its a completely different way of typing, but you get used to it quickly.

[KameronCrawford]

Sat next to the person using a stenography machine who was adding captions live during a presentation I went to last year and I was so distracted in fascination watching them type that I couldn’t even tell you what the presentation was about.

[dickthedorkwing]

I had a blind friend in middle school try to teach me how to type on his braille machine and it broke my brain. This video just caused my brain to melt down on a quantum scale.

[leleskoob]

I used to be a communications assistant so I’d close caption for the deaf and or hearing impaired and man when I say I have respect for these guys. I was close captioning on a regular keyboard and I struggled. So to dive in and learn a whole new typing system is so cool and I respect it so much!!

[gothifian]

girl i just woke up my brain cant handle this rn

[RAYMUFC]

Watched the whole video and still don't get it. Think I will stick to my normal keyboard.

[alphaxard]

prosecutor: the suspect was seen pacing station  wearing a hoodie...
Stenographer: FML

[satan]

we have a book for shorthand stenography at home that i opened exactly _once_ and then said no thank you

[khizarzulfi]

Even being a physicist, I have never come across this much technicality. Hats off to stenographers or whatever you call it.🤯

[carpediem]

Imagine just forgetting the letter placement in the middle of it and you're just sitting there like 👁️👄👁️