Steno: It’s Like Believing Your Husband When He Says “She Meant Nothing to Me.”

In our field, we face two concurrent issues: Communicating to each other that many court reporting companies are not being honest with us about their intentions for the industry and communicating to consumers that their choice as consumers is under attack. I recently came across the following post by Jeanese Johnson. Jeanese’s post is probably the most on-the-nose portrayal of the situation for communicating it to each other that I’ve seen, and I am very grateful to her for allowing me to host it here on Stenonymous.

By Jeanese Johnson:

When a digital-supporting company tells you that they only use the digiz for shit jobs you don’t want and you believe it, that’s akin to your husband saying… “Yeah, she didn’t mean anything to me.”

When a digital-employing company tells you they “sparingly” use digitals ONLY when you’re not available, ask them – “Why do you call them ‘reporters,’ though?”

If you “really” wanted us to be on the higher echelon, wouldn’t you call us “Certified/Licensed Court Reporters” and them… Well… something else?

Why aren’t there two tiers of pricing? Does the one tier — our tier — “Cure” the “shortage”? (I call BULLSHIT!)

Ask them, “Why do you charge the same as a real court reporter?”

Ask them, “Don’t you think that’s confusing the marketplace?”

Ask them, “Did you really want to send a first-year reporter to a multi realtime patent case?” (We don’t believe you) Because first-year reporters need the smaller jobs. And not all reporters only want all-day. Not all reporters are realtime. And the smartest reporter I ever met stood next to me in court and said, “Yeah, at this stage, I like short… all day long…” and I was too new and too stupid to know what she was talking about. And I still admire her to this moment.

Tell them that what they think is a “shit” job is one that many “real” court reporters prefer; i.e., short, light, fast, easy – over so we can pick up our kids. And tell them that we don’t buy their “new explanation” for why they’re raking in the money on cheap digital – I mean — excuse me/pardon me — “curing the shortage” by piling on millions and buying up companies — I mean — “Looking out for ‘precious’ us” – who “don’t want to take the shit jobs.” 🙄

Ask them if they network the job to an agency that does have reporters available.

I just attended a meeting where Esquire has purchased TSG Reporting.

Esquire came out and said they were going to address “the elephant in the room” (Hmmm… I remember saying these exact words, and I promptly got kicked out of the Veritext court group — by “accident” 😉 ) Can’t believe after all we know those reporters are still helping them. So sad. They must have stock in Veritext.

Anyway, I found the Esquire group to be just as I expected.

I found them somewhat phoney; i.e., “We LOVE court reporters! You’re our first priority! We’re nothing without you!”

If you’re not the type to believe “She didn’t mean anything to me…” then ask them to prove it. Ask them to see the invoices where a recorder person (because, remember, if you agree to work for them, you’ve already said they should not call them court reporters – because that’s insulting to everyone and confusing to the marketplace) took one of those dreadful, awful public meetings (the “new” reason for the using digitals – it’s not because we have remote now and better coverage – it’s NOT that they get to keep copy orders and all the profits like it was a real reporter) and show how much the client paid – then… that’s when you see why they use them. 💡 And that’s when you’ll see that it really did mean something. 💔

There was nothing in the meeting redeeming. There was nothing in the meeting inspiring – even though the presenters seemed to think so. Esquire — through all of its Gallo iterations — came to the meeting knowing how we see them – and that’s why it was yucky – and nothing was done to address… the “yucky in the room.”

Esquire was asked if they have CSRs transcribe the fake proceedings. And they answered yes. They seemed proud of that – where we’re likely disgusted.

Esquire admitted “vaguely” that they “only use digital in five states…” It was peppered down.

We should ask them: “Which five states?”

My direct question along with who was going to be their RIC in July and do they use digital in California — was not answered.

So looks like TSG will be removed from the job boards if we do not have this answer.

I understand the “get out” move – plenty have done it. And all have a right to do so. No problems there. Congratulations to Rixon – would have been nice if he was on the call – but I suppose he’s already in the Bahamas! Salut! 💃

In parting: They said their attys know and agree to using a DIGITAL REPORTER – they seemed also proud of this — there were all smiles on the face of the Esquire personnel – kind of creepy smiles, though – Why would you be proud of substituting your “precious” <— and they used that word —> court reporters for fake court reporters? And why are you okay with the marketplace being okay with this?

Because of the legacy that Veritext taught you. That’s the answer. They’re teaching all of these companies how to do it – and Esquire one-upped them by at least explaining to their clients that they’re recording. And Esquire claimed to have top-of-the-line technology and all the best stuff – they were also quite proud – while reporters sat and listened and asked the most degrading questions like we were still in the year 2000 — “When we get assigned, how…” “Will our rates be…”

So powerless they were.

So you’ll say, “But, Jeanese, you don’t want to take the shit public meeting either. We read your post about the first agency you worked with used to send you to the downtown L.A. Metro meetings and it was God-awful.”

You’re right. Absolutely. I have no fight there.

But I wasn’t recording anything. I was writing my ass off. And the agency I worked for didn’t charge rates for “just recording it” while using a licensed reporter – and keep the difference in profits.

Esquire said they don’t use people off the street. Hmmm, maybe they heard our complaint about CraigsList. They said their people have degrees and are AAERT certified.

And this tells me they’ve also been listening to our complaints about: Well, we have a license, so… why? What makes this okay?

But they haven’t told us that they denounce this — they just keep saying… “She didn’t mean anything to me.”

That doesn’t sit well with me. I’d still want to know how much a “degreed individual” is paid. Don’t just shake your head and agree to everything they say.

Their faces showed — it’s all bullshit.

If CR is the best – show me by only using CRs –

Or open another company and call them “We’re too lazy – so we just record it!” Company – and charge accordingly.

Then at least I could respect it. And the clients would know the difference. And we’d all have a job.

I saw a couple of reporters on the meeting nodding their head when Esquire was explaining their position…

This scares me.

Do we REALLY believe that a company that has people with degrees and higher education and employs salespeople and et cetera, et cetera, can’t think of a solution other than “recording it”?

That’s the best they got?

LOL.

They can think of marketing tools. And they can bring tumblers and calendars – but they can’t fight for reciprocation? They can’t schedule around like interpreters do? Like doctors do? Like any valued — pardon me, excuse me — “TRULY” valued human would to your company? Really? We’re “highly valued…” but there’s just this little “work around…” “No, but really, You’re valued.” And… and… it doesn’t really mean anything…

Images for search engines:

Digital court reporting deception commentary by Jeanese Johnson

Court Reporter EDU is FoS

So I stumbled across the CourtReporterEdu.org website. A pleasant website that is facially neutral. You look at it, and it doesn’t seem to be anything “bad.” It talks about stenographers and shorthand. It has a picture of a stenotype. Looks like the kind of marketing stenographers should be doing.

Then you, reader, head on over to a magical place, court reporting info by state.

And when the reader goes to look at their state, they’ll infallibly get a long list of schools that have “court reporter programs.”

From my review of the New York schools listed, none have a digital court reporter degree. The few that mention digital court reporting sell the digital court reporting as a “continuing education” program. In short, they’re selling continuing education for a degree track that does not exist. Some of these schools have zero mention of digital court reporting on their website. Some schools, like BMCC, you reach out to admissions, and they know nothing about the program.

So, of course, I ask Ed 2 Go what the deal is, because Mark Pugal from Ed 2 Go has been trying to sell me on Digital Court Reporting for like a month now.

And of course, I trust, but verify.

BMCC asked for my concerns, so I put them out there.

Now, just to explain, in part, why I think CourtReporterEDU and possibly Ed 2 Go is being dishonest: (1) In many of the schools listed, when one goes to independently verify the existence of the program, it doesn’t seem to exist. Attempting to verify the program with the schools that actually do seem to offer it leads to this roundabout “we don’t have that program, but actually we do” response. Maybe at the point colleges are selling programs with no future and are so insignificant the admissions department doesn’t know they exist, or they don’t exist, we’ve gone too far. (2) Even where the program exists, it is selling students a course in something that is not the industry standard and does not have as many opportunities. (3) Putting a stenotype on your homepage and then diverting people to digital court reporting via esyoh.com and Ed 2 Go is just dishonest. Even if we forgive everything else, the way this page is set up is to confuse people and lend legitimacy to digital court reporting that it does not deserve.

At the bottom of this page is a video walking people through that part. Now for a bit of speculation. We know from the WHOIS lookup that the registrant’s address was in Florida. The server the site is hosted on appears to be in California, but that’s likely irrelevant.

Luckily, one of the schools actually advertising the program gives us a peek into who might be promoting it. Wagner College lists Merritt Gilbert and Natalie Hartsfield.

Merritt Gilbert is apparently in Florida and connected to BlueLedge. BlueLedge, as some may remember from a prior post, are aggressively marketing digital as the answer to the stenographer shortage exaggerated and exacerbated by STTI, Veritext, and US Legal. The author of that article stating digital reporting is the answer to shortage? Benjamin Jaffe. Who is Benjamin Jaffe? BlueLedge.

Who is Merritt Gilbert? BlueLedge.

Who is Natalie Hartsfield? Digital, BlueLedge, Florida.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting. Remember when I wrote yesterday that US Legal has been on inactive status in New York since 2001? BlueLedge, according to Florida Department of State, has been dissolved since 2019.

And just for anyone who thinks “maybe there are two BlueLedge companies in Florida,” take a look at that mailing address, 101 E Kennedy Blvd. Guess what the address for BlueLedge is.

If you guessed 101 E Kennedy Blvd, congratulations.

How is it legal for a dissolved company to misdirect the public, searching for stenographic reporter training, to Ed 2 Go and digital court reporting? It might not be, but it’s going to depend on us asking our various government agencies to look into this as a matter of false advertising and possibly operating illegally in the state. I reached out to my New York State Education Department as it pertained to this course being sold to New York consumers. Maybe this is something the members of each state association can tackle.

This situation blew my mind. We cannot stand for this. We have to fight and understand that we are playing against people that do not play by the rules or within the bounds of our self-imposed moral code. I have collected these images and ideas in a central place. Please use them to do good. I should note that at least one consumer was extremely confused and came onto our message boards asking about how to buy a stenotype for digital court reporting. We must act with compassion. Consumers are being lied to and we are the only people with the knowledge to explain it to them. They WILL stumble onto our message boards confused because they ARE being bombarded by lies.

Addendum:

After reaching out to ESYOH well after this article, they took action! The scheme is now less potent because of their valiant actions.

Where the schools used to lure students to a splash page, they now lead to box about degrees.

When Autocraptions Fail, Stenographers Step Up

In a series of images posted by Michelle M. Kirkpatrick on September 28, 2021, the failure of automatic captions was on full display.

What society would turn a blind eye to this kind of suffering?

Knowing that people were in need, she stepped up to help and contacted deaf people in the area to let them know what the broadcast said.

It’s very clear how close to danger these people were.

This comes on the heels of reports that digital reporting proponent Verbit was pseudo-cybersquatting on 121 Captions.

Alternative to 121. I should try this strategy with them and see how it goes.

Given all the data released on Stenonymous as of posting, it is clear that digital and ASR solutions are inadequate for captioning. The dishonesty and blatant disregard for standard industry practices from Verbit in particular has been contemptible. The stenographic captioner has the best value out of all available methods. People interested in joining the profession and ensuring access for all should check out NCRA A to Z, Project Steno, or Open Steno. Despite claims by the STTI that there is an equivalency in modalities, it’s been shown that digital and non-voice writing ASR solutions would harm African American Vernacular English speakers. In the words of one ex-digital reporter, they were simply not paid enough to care. Luckily, spam filters continue to place STTI promotional material where it belongs.