(NOTE 1: Reading time is extended by the text preserved at the end of this writeup. The writeup is short-ish.)

(NOTE 2: I am told by several readers the first link is not working for them. I am not sure how to fix this. It was working for me last I checked on 2/13/24.)

A public post by Angela Sidener came to my attention. Though the post was made during National Court Reporters Association’s Court Reporting & Captioning Week 2024, the events described therein occurred at the organization’s Legislative Boot Camp 2023 (herein LBC), before my announced resignation from the National Court Reporters Association in August 2023.

In brief, NCRA’s LBC, though I have never attended, is a taste of lobbying and learning about the legislative process, particularly of the federal government. Many, many court reporters are ignorant with regard to how laws are passed, and the education truly is vital to our field.

But something reportedly happened that day. Disgraced Congressman Ed Whitfield was invited to speak, and therein he minimized the events of the January 6th occupation of the capitol by over 2,000 “mostly peaceful” protestors, also known as rioters. The event was referred to as a “demonstration” by Mr. Whitfield.

At this point, I have to say, NCRA has always portrayed itself as non-partisan to a fault. It avoids controversial topics even where the law and science is completely on the side of working court reporters. So to learn that very partisan viewpoints made their way into the Legislative Boot Camp is pretty disheartening. There are also allegations that NCRA Executive Director Dave Wenhold made a comment about Obama being against free speech. Being something of a free speech absolutist myself, I don’t fault him if that’s a genuine belief. But that’s not, in my view, in line with the whole “we are a non-partisan organization” thing if true. Most politicians are against free speech if it brings them closer to a goal.

Sidener goes on to mention NCRA’s freelance lean. And this is unreservedly true. We have been watching officialships get eaten up by Steve Townsend and the digital brigade for years. How interesting is it that for years, and years, and years we repeated the mantra “realtime is the future,” putting all our eggs into a single basket of the high-priced, low volume specialty? The idea of business diversification eluded all of the major players for well over half a decade, and that includes Wenhold, Stenograph, and beyond. In Stenograph’s case, the organization figured out what diversification was as soon as Anir Dutta took the helm and made friends with the STTI Bloc. Or they knew damn well and funneled all the eggs into one basket anyway. Choose one.

The impact of watching those officialships be eaten is palpable. As court reporters in New York fought to bring attention to the impact that the loss of stenographers might have on the indigent, particularly minority speakers, the National Court Reporters Association was mostly silent — though I personally give credit to the org for hooking me up with Vice News so many years ago, something that would not have been done if there was uniform overt hostility to egalitarianism I promote. The NCRA could not have known that Vice would go on to lie by omission.

The ultimate result of failing to fight for officials and leaving it to the state associations to figure out, as Sidener writes, is criminal court reporters crushed under the weight of their dockets. In my view, this will lead to more criminal matters rolling over to audio and digital court reporting, which has turnaround time issues and sometimes results in the record being lost, appeals being denied, or expensive reconstruction hearings. Through its “non-partisan” habitual inaction, NCRA indeed chooses a side. It chooses to allow the indigent to be plagued by subpar record quality and serious privacy issues rather than stand up and shout that every person appearing in a legal proceeding in this country deserves the gold standard of stenographic court reporting. Because THAT would be political! This is an organization devoted to stenographers, by the way. It shouldn’t be a hard choice.

Perhaps it is time for the NCRA Board to consider a change in leadership. As I mentioned in my corruption post, we do not have to keep using people from the association management industry. We can send stenographers to association management training. It’s become painfully clear to me that we need an executive director that has done what we do. We can no longer afford to have the staff wag the dog and glide by on pure charisma. We need results. And if the NCRA can’t deliver, it needs to dissolve.

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National Con Reporters & Captioners[sic] Week 2024

TLDR; I finally gave up my RPR and professional association. 😊

Many of my colleagues and friends are celebrating the court reporting profession this week. Unfortunately, this year I’m not joining in the festivities, even though the last two years I was responsible for getting Gov. Inslee to declare Court Reporting and Captioning Week statewide in an official proclamation.

A few things last year opened my eyes wide. I’m grateful and truly thankful for this experience and for those who have supported me. We organize for a better future.

In February 2023, I went to Washington, D.C., as vice president of my state court reporters association for a national legislative boot camp. I was excited for the mentorship opportunity, networking with colleagues, and meeting with legislators again. I caught a red-eye Friday night, Washington state to Washington, D.C., because, as an official reporter in superior court, I had a docket to cover. I work a full-time+ job in addition to all my volunteer activities, so my schedule was tight, but I was excited.

As a preface, I’m experienced in the nuances of politics, pay attention to current events, and have butted heads with the national organization on a few occasions over the years, but I was a loyal member. I disagreed with their anti-worker agenda that urged members to advocate against the PRO Act, various other pieces of independent contractor legislation they’ve opposed in the past, so I’m always weary of their politicking and pay close attention.

What I experienced at boot camp, and the aftermath, shook my world, both personally and professionally. There’s probably 60 people in attendance. Reading the room, I knew this wasn’t the most politically active crowd when they were impressed with the School House Rocks video on how to pass a bill. I noticed no one batted an eye when the national executive director was bragging about his role in suing the government, Citizens United, the most destructive ruling regarding money in politics in our Supreme Court history, telling the crowd President Obama was against free speech. Cringe.

To spare more details, I’m jumping right to the line crossed. Monday morning, a supposed impromptu speaker was introduced. Never mind the brag his sidekick quipped while introducing him about being from the home of Kevin McCarthy, fist pump, (cringe), they brought disgraced former Congressman Ed Whitfield, Republican from Kentucky that was forced to resign over ethics violations, to the mic to gaslight the crowd about January 6th and Democrats stealing elections. That’s all he talked about. He had nothing to add to our agenda, nothing to say about court reporting. This was a violation of our professional Code of Ethics, clearly extreme right-wing politicking at a nonpartisan organization’s event.

I was livid, but I sat in silence, only offering the word “insurrection” twice when Mr. Whitfield was stuttering around, trying to find what to call an attempted coup we all watched on TV. He settled on calling it a demonstration. I was texting my sister in shock. She advised I get up and leave, but I was there representing my state and I was fearful to make a scene. As he finished gaslighting, the entire room applauded, but me. Leadership gathered around him to shake hands and were all smiles and pictures. I looked around, still in shock, and said to my table, “I cannot believe NCRA gave that nazzzi a platform.”

A few in my group said, “Shhhh, you can’t be political here.” My eyes popped as I realized they must not have understood a word he was saying. (In full disclosure, I lived in Richmond when the nazzzi’s marched in Charlottesville in 2017, killed Heather Heyer, and they are politically active on the east coast as well as here in Spokane and Idaho, but maybe I should have said fascist? Big diff?)

I said, “I didn’t bring it up. He just gaslit this entire crowd. January 6th was an attack on our sitting government, not a demonstration. A confederate flag was flown in our Capitol building for the first time, and there’s African-Americans here,” like, “What?” End of discussion, I get up and walk out for the break.

I immediately meet up with a colleague and expressed my shock, disgust, and feelings of leaving immediately. She said she was surprised too and that someone from California at her table shared the same WTF comments, but they still all clapped along at the end. This was the last day before Hill Day, so I decided to stick with my group and keep my mouth shut about the incident. We all got along fine in our skits, discussion afterwards, and there wasn’t any drama. We also all chatted in group texts. There was no scene.

Hill Day comes and it’s an amazing day. My colleague and I scrap the 12-hour schedule given to us and just visit our reps and take in the experience. I had to fly back early to get back to work Wednesday, but we were able to catch some amazing events going on around The Hill. There was a large demonstration outside SCOTUS for student debt relief, Equal Rights Amendment demonstrations were happening, and we were able to listen in as other lobbyists met with our legislators. I have stories, but I won’t digress here. It was an amazing day brushing elbows in one of my favorite places.

I get home and try to process this experience after I’d gotten rest and wasn’t jetlagged. I’d been in communication with two members of the national association back in my state and shared what happened. They were shocked and expressed outrage they were told there was no room for them to speak, the NCRA STRONG committee, but they gave time to Mr. Whitfield. One was on our state legislative committee and the other was serving on the national board of directors. The director took my concerns to a meeting where it was discussed and decided no action would be taken to apologize to attendees for the lapse in ethical judgement that allowed such a presentation, nor would they make a statement in firm support of democracy, free and fair elections, just basic non-partisan American values.

On top of my full-time+ job and board service, committee assignments, I was also in the middle of teaching a national Intro to Steno A to Z program with active participants I’d recruited and mentored. I didn’t want to let them down with an immediate resignation, so I swept my personal feelings aside to get through this 6-week program. After it ended, I emailed the national board myself, as a dues-paying member, and asked for them to recognize Mr. Whitfield did not speak for the association, nor our values. I also asked how much of national’s money was paid to his lobbying firm, Farragut Group, to make these phone calls to set up our meetings. Simple requests, I thought.

The president of the association wrote me back. Nobody else on the board responded. The president’s response was a pathetic attempt at acknowledging the damage done and covering for the association, saying they were all shocked by his speech, and their executive director did bring it up and got an apology for Mr. Whitfield’s comments; it certainly won’t happen again, but . . . they wouldn’t be passing that apology along to those in attendance. It’s best if we just shhhh. I’ll attach my correspondence with the national president in the comments here for full disclosure.

After long and hard consideration, conversations with people I respect, I gave up my membership. It was hard!!! I gave up the initials I’d paid for, tested out, and earned because I’m ashamed and embarrassed to belong to such an organization. My friends and I joke about what those initials really stand for: National Corporate Reporters Association? National Con Reporters Association? National Clueless Reporters Association? If you attend their meetings, they’re actively anti-union and like to book venues for conventions without union representation for their events.

I’ve worked in the courts and covered the criminal docket. It’s THE most important work done on a daily basis, bar none. It’s the record on which appeals happen, laws are affirmed, challenged, and reviewed. It’s a court reporter’s job to make sure that record is preserved. I hope none of you ever find yourself in a seat as a victim or defendant in a courtroom with a clerk pushing a recording button, outsourcing transcribing to noncertified court reporters in a certification-required state. The joke is national and state organizations have let digital recorders come into the courts, and it’s okay with them if a digital recorder replaces an official reporter.

Out of 39 counties in Washington, only 13 jurisdictions have official reporters left, and they’re mostly understaffed, many retiring. This is a certification required state! I pay for a state license to do my job here. King County, which is Seattle, has only 3 to 4 official reporters for their entire superior court bench. Look up how many judges they have. Those officials left are struggling with the weight of their dockets. Many court admins keep reporters in trial/on the record M-F and mandate we do all our transcript work on nights, weekends, and vacations. Fact. I have that in writing from Spokane County court administration.

National, and many state organizations by proxy, are “fighting” to keep the digital recorders out of their deposition rooms and freelance field only. That’s where the money is made. Criminal indigent work is the lowest pay, and they don’t want to do it. But people’s liberty interests are at stake! No bigger threat in life than your loss of liberty. We’re “court” reporters, not “deposition” reporters, but national and state associations never seem to be able to organize to benefit working reporters and keep courts staffed to have an impartial, skilled guardian of the record writing and filing that transcript.

In my experience volunteering, outside of testing, which seems to be their loss-leader to maintain membership dues, national’s priority is big-box firm owners either chomping at the bit to or actively abusing the independent contractor laws. I witnessed it for years and pushed back, made many friends doing so. Hours of meetings and hundreds of emails voicing frustration at their misinformation and fear-mongering, the organization purposefully keeping reporters ignorant of their rights, advancements in technology, and current laws being made that affect our industry.

I resigned my membership after losing all trust and respect for the association. This machine fights fascism.

RIP RPR

#CRCW2024 #RIPRPR961249

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