Tips for Publishing Without Consequences

I get away with publishing pretty much anything I want. It’s something I’m proud of and really promote because I feel our field will grow stronger by having discussions and having things out in the open. That said, with this power comes some responsibility, so I’m going to share some of the thought processes that help keep me away from endangering my career so that others who follow might avoid the pitfalls of free speech.

1. Personal situation is important. One of the reasons I started Stenonymous was because government workers have some free speech protections. The large court reporting businesses had no power over me because my money is made completely independently from them. Freelancers have a hard time in this regard. There’s no protection and agencies have actively tried to cause trouble for them in the past. So the first thing to do before publishing is to take stock of your personal situation and imagine the pros and cons of speaking out. Sometimes speaking through someone else, as many people have done by corresponding with me and sharing information, is safer.

2. Details are important. Free speech protections aside, talking about your workplace could pose a problem. In general, don’t publish about the specific cases you work on, the court you work for, or the sensitive things you do in the course of your official duties. For example, I am free to absolutely trash California courts and policies if I want to. Doing the same in my backyard could be problematic. Keep in mind, it may limit career mobility to trash a lot of different places, so it may be undesirable to trash places in your publishing if you may uproot and move there in the future. This is why I don’t trash Kentucky. If the ocean ever swallows New York City I need Migliore & Associates to hire me.

3. Truth is important. The things you publish should be truthful. Truth is a defense to defamation and anyone is allowed to sue for any reason. Any of you could sue me right now in my hometown with a complaint that says “Chris Day is a bad man and owes me a million dollars.” You wouldn’t win, but the point stands, truth is a strong lawsuit deterrent.

4. Fair use is important. Take care if what you publish is copyrighted. All creative works are copyrighted upon creation. There is some wiggle room in the fair use doctrine where things created for parody, education, debate, commentary, etc, may allow the use of copyrighted material.

5. Have a backup to explain antisocial behavior. Most neoliberals back up their psychotic behavior by saying things like “it’s just business.” Usually as they’re firing single moms and stuff like that. My personal out is that I have adopted a performative media style called the “dirtbag left” style. This helps people reconcile my very mellow and polite in-person self with my more loud and visible media persona.

6. Punch up. People and organizations with wealth and power are far better targets for commentary. If they hit back, they’re the big bully preying on you for exercising your free speech rights. If they do nothing, they look weak to those that follow you, consume your content, or agree with your points.

7. Find a niche. The big money types are correct when they talk about business ecosystems and companies’ roles in those ecosystems. Free speech, power of the press, and general sharing and distribution of information are part of ecosystems too. Publishing is about finding your niche in the ecosystem. For example, there are people like Shaunise Day, Stephanie Hicks, Denee Vadell, and the Stenoholics. Like me, they’re all content creators. They make amazing stuff. But we don’t fill the same niches. I present analyses of and commentary on our field along with populating search engines with articles and images that counter the corporate narrative. Shaunise creates conventions that make me wish I wasn’t an introvert. Stephanie and Denee make videos that outclass anything I’ve ever made in my entire life. If I had the money, my new niche would probably be syndicating our stenographic media and pumping it out to the world (and getting our content creators paid.) The point is, whatever you do, be original or do things better, it’ll get your content more exposure and be more impactful.

8. Pay your taxes. Make sure to claim any income from your publishing hustle, even if it’s somehow expensed on a schedule C or something like that. Your rivals might just report you to the IRS if they see your content attracting real dollars.

9. Use personal attacks sparingly. Most of my publishing is about the conduct of corporations and not so much focused on the individuals that work for those businesses. If you’re going after somebody, you really want to have a firm grasp on why you’re doing it, because you may have to explain your conduct to a friend, follower, or employer.

10. Have fun and stay calm. Publishing comes with risks. People can sue, talk about you behind your back, or even openly trash you. It’s very advantageous to take on a nihilistic “nothing really matters” approach to the world in this regard. For example, I’ve put it out there again and again that given enough funding this blog will grow its media footprint and push the agenda of working reporters harder than anybody else has in the last 50 years. It ultimately doesn’t matter whether the funding comes through because I believe in what I’m doing and the information that I publish helps people. Money is a means to an end and not an objective. Similarly, it’s advantageous to have a mission behind what you do, because it will keep you going even when the funding takes a nosedive. Flip side of that, don’t become too obsessed with your mission, because if something comes along that stops you from achieving your objectives, you want to keep good mental health. If you’re not ready mentally for the potential consequences, it’s okay to walk away from a creative or content-generating project.

You’ve got my book of tricks. The First Amendment is our strongest card against an inert government and corporate corruption. Go build something better.

Press Release Services by Christopher Day – Stenonymous Network

Why Press Releases?

One of the core issues we face together in our industry is the reach of our media. For years, we allowed the big players to dominate the paid-for press release space. When journalists go to find information on our field, the mergers and announcements of those players would be just about all that was available. Our professional journal and association newsletters are very important, but communicating who we are and what we provide to the world is also important.

To this end, I’ve gotten very familiar with the EIN Presswire service. The service takes a press release in a standard format and republishes it to many sites across the internet, resulting in more potential exposure for your business, nonprofit, or event. The $100 price tag of EIN per release is pricy. I buy press releases in bulk, so I’m able to help reduce that cost to our community of stenographers and related services.

For $50, I can use my press releases to get your news out there. High expectations for the next quarter? Announce it. Congratulating one of your favorite independent contractors on an achievement? Let the world know. We have so much news in this industry that we could easily fill a newswire with our own media. If you would like to submit a press release to me, just write me at contact@stenonymous.com.

How To Do It:

The EIN system is simple. Give me a press release title and a subtitle or summary along with the city, state, and country of your release. Give me the date you want the release to go out as well.

Next, I need the body of the press release. You may also add three links to the press release by telling me the keywords in the body text and where they should link.

Next up, I need the contact information for the press release submitter. This is who you want journalists to contact if they’re interested in learning more about your announcement. I will also need the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social media link you want in your press release. If you don’t want social media links, that’s fine too.

As for stock symbol, if you have one, let me know the exchange that your company is traded on. Most stenographic corporations are privately owned, so there would not be a stock symbol.

Also, pick a quote from your press release that you would like to stand out. Short and powerful quotes are very effective at grabbing readers’ attention.

Finally, you can give me up to five images you would like in your press release, one video, and one website embed. This can draw more traffic to your content and site, and should not be overlooked.

At that point, I can send a press release preview to you for approval. I’ll also select the industry channels that make the most sense for your content.

If you want me to do the work:

I understand that some feel uncomfortable creating their own content, and I’m happy to do the work for a fee, but in order to create content, we need to set a realistic budget. If you expect me to write your press release for you, expect to spend $300. If you want to create a video together, expect the cost to be more within the $500 range. Time and effort goes into my work, and while I can’t guarantee a journalist will pick up your story, I can guarantee that the story will be reprinted across many outlets and that you will get a full report of all the reprints.

My portfolio:

I have worked on or helped distribute several press releases for Stenonymous, as well as various businesses and nonprofits. Here are some highlights:

NYSCRA CRCW 2021

NYSCRA CRCW 2022

Skill Test Fundraiser

StenoMasters

MGR Reporting

Steno 101

Protect Your Record Project

Identimap

Stenonymous 2022

Stenonymous Suite: Early Version

I wrote some time ago about how I wanted to combine all my steno-related computer coding into one thing so that I could troubleshoot one thing instead of keeping track of multiple projects. This early version of the Stenonymous Suite contains the WKT test generator, the finger drill generator, something I call a streamer, that streams the text you tell it to stream at the rate you tell it to stream, and it also automatically marks .txt files for dictation. As those of you who have manually marked dictation know, it can take upwards of 10 minutes per marking. This program will mark it in about one second, and has saved me over 15 hours of manually marking dictations.

If you are a stenographic educator or dictation enthusiast, this program is totally free and has no strings attached, but I am also willing to put it through the marker program for you at a rate of 25 cents per marking, $5 minimum.

Windows users, easy download exe here. Unzip the folder, click the StenonymousSuite.exe.

The code for the program is slapped up on here.

Steno Speed and the Youtube Angle

Going back a couple of years ago, if you YouTube’d stenography, you’d get pen shorthand reporting from India. Happy to report that that paradigm is taking a hard shift. Today, at the top of the list is Stan Sakai’s Quick and Dirty Steno, with over a quarter of a million views. You’ve got way more than that, though. Today you’ve got Ken Wick’s court reporting videos, Katiana Walton’s podcasts, and content from tons of other creators new and old. Bottom line is American stenography and stenotype machine shorthand reporting is expanding its online presence in a big way. There’s also always been a healthy presence for stenography off of YouTube, including favorites like Mark Kislingbury, Mirabai Knight, or Marc Greenberg.

So many of these content creators are on my resource page, and I encourage professionals and students to write and comment if there’s a resource, blog, or content that you think should get added there. If you’re a content creator who’s like, “damn, why am I not mentioned anywhere on Stenonymous?” All I can say is the chance of that being intentional is pretty low. That all said, we’re pushing further along on the YouTube-Steno front. As some know, I have been working on my own YouTube channel in my spare time. There’s a multi-pronged goal of creating free resources for students so that they can have dictation available even when they cannot afford the amazing premium services out there and also introducing the idea of stenography to anybody who happens to stumble across a video of mine. Thanks to the generosity of Linda Fisher from StenoSpeed.com, down as of writing, I’m able to add over a hundred dictations to my YouTube. These dictations helped me very much as a student, they were free prior to StenoSpeed.com going down, and I am happy to put it in writing: They will be available and free once again. Simply go over to my playlists and look for the playlists marked STENO SPEED.

As of posting, these videos are still being worked on. Expect all Steno Speed audio to be posted by August 4, 2019. A great deal is already up, so don’t hesitate to spread the news and keep sharing resources together.

To anybody thinking of jumping into the mix of content creation, I recommend it. This is a vibrant field with a very loyal audience and a lot of people out there who just might need to read what you write, hear what you have to say, or watch how you do it!