What Realtime Reporters Do
Realtime court reporters are high-tech professionals in the legal field who are responsible for recording verbatim (word-for-word) what is said during court proceedings, examinations for discovery, public hearings, tribunals and boards of inquiry. They use stenotype machines to transcribe what is said, and are responsible for producing a final, formatted transcript of a proceeding. Broadcast captioners use the same sorts of machines to create a record of what is heard on television for closed captioning purposes, or to record what is said at conferences, or to create DVD subtitles. There are a lot of potential jobs for trained reporters. The skills you acquire at CCVS – in particular, the ability to meet the realtime standards of certification – will allow you to be successful in any of these fields.
Reporters use computers and a specialized machine called a stenotype to do their job. The stenotype enables reporters to take down words by sound, rather than by how they are spelled, letter by letter. This allows reporters to write words much faster than anyone can on a standard computer keyboard. Technology called “computer-aided transcription” or “CAT” software electronically links the stenotype to a computer, which translates the reporter's notes into English text that can then be researched, corrected, telecommunicated, stored on CD-ROM or other computer media, integrated with videotape - or simply printed out in a conventional manner. There are currently very few trained Realtime reporters in the world, and as a result, a diploma from CCVS provides students with access to a wealth of job and travel opportunities.