Posting the corruption article the other day inspired me to review some of the information in it.
I realized I had posted the NCRA stats that were posted as of August 2023, which were stats from December 2022.
I compared that to the most updated stats on its website.
From 11,946 to 11,009 is a loss of 937 overall members.
The loss of court reporter members from 8,980 to 8,113 is a loss of 867.
Some of this is no doubt attributable to the shortage. People are retiring out. That was never in dispute. But even by the bleakest of statistics published by the Speech-to-Text Institute before it was accused of fraud and shut down its website, there are a couple hundred new reporters entering the workforce each year. Where are they in this equation?
Either they lack the knowledge of NCRA, or lack the motivation to join. And in either case, the NCRA should probably be studying why that is.
But this is the organizational issue with NCRA, and a big reason I left. The organization lacks introspection. It is ever focused on blaming the outsider, the other, the people like me that dare criticize the direction we’re headed. In such a culture and environment, it is nearly impossible to examine and ask, “is it something we’re doing wrong? Are we the bad guys?”
And to a degree, this is shouting to the void, hoping the words carry and the winds change. Because it’s not just retirees that left. There’s an entire network of people just like me that gave up their certification and said “goodbye, old friend.” We lost the belief in the organization, and we took our money and effort with us. Not just so-called “checkbook members”, but people willing to donate serious time to the organization, and in some cases, fundraise for it.
I will say in NCRA’s defense that, over 3 or 4 years, a loss of about 200 a year, is far less bleeding than the Speech-to-Text Institute’s forecasting, which was something like a loss of 700 reporters a year in exactly this time frame. So at least there’s that.
“Am I the bad guy?”