New York State Unified Court System issues a statement on Court Reporting & Captioning Week 2024New York State Unified Court System issues a statement on Court Reporting & Captioning Week 2024
This follows other positive statements about court reporters from the New York State Unified Court System.
Statewide NYSUCS positions are posted here. Court reporter postings are under the court operations section. Previously, every 1 to 4 years a civil service exam was posted by law, but is my understanding that is being done away with for JG-24 court reporters. As of writing I believe JG-27 Senior Court Reporters still require an exam.
Asked for comment about what jobseekers can expect from a career with the New York State Unified Court System, ASSCR Union President Eric Allen issued the following statement:
“Any court stenographer seeking a job within the Unified Court System of the State of New York can expect to be working in an environment where they are respected and sought after. The pay scale in New York is one of the highest of the big states. In addition to that, the New York State court system is always actively seeking court stenographers. New York wants officials. They have made that abundantly clear.
Each and every official court reporter in New York is represented by a union which will offer them many benefits above and beyond what their employer offers. Working in the NY Court system will have you feeling you are where you belong. If you are wanting to be an official, New York, especially New York City, is where you ought to be.”
That says it all, reporters. Take the next step and make moves to become a New York State official court reporter today!
Addendum:
This post will be advertised on Facebook until February 15th. Donations to Stenonymous.com in the next 7 days will help extend that time period.
This app ate the draft I made about r/court_reporting! Technology is crazy.
r/court_reporting now joins r/courtreporting and r/stenography as places where machine shorthand writers can be chronically online talk to each other anonymously through Reddit. Made by a not-me court reporter, for court reporters, it’s worth joining the discussion today!
In other news, we already have a couple of pledges and a couple hundred eyes on the post about New York City unionization from yesterday. Word about the idea has been posted to the Industry Times of New York.
I gotta say though, alternative publications like mine thrive off word-of-mouth spread from readers like you. If anyone out there would like to share the Industry Times press release or my post from yesterday, I’d be eternally grateful, even if you share it under the guise of an insult about me so that the agencies don’t catch on. I had the privilege of very briefly speaking with two figureheads from the then-defunct Federation of Shorthand over the years. I got the sense that one of the reasons it didn’t work out was it was hard to reach people. It’s still hard to reach people. But now the internet is so ubiquitous that word can travel faster and farther than was imaginable in the whole history of mankind. Surely, if we can get some shares, we can reach more people than those reporters of the past were able to.
And, you know, like I said yesterday, once this gets rolling it becomes a model that is theoretically reproducible in other states. I’ve already had a reporter reach out about the terrible treatment they’ve received in another state, the pain of doing the “freelance” thing with disabilities, and the hope that the unionization model will take off and protect new reporters.
For anyone that’s doing great in this field, I know you don’t want to let negativity into your bubble. I was the same way. But the purpose of acknowledging these negative situations is to progress toward positive solutions.
Let me remind everybody that the paragons of silence and ignorance that instinctively cling to their failing traditions are the ones that brought us to a place where we have very little institutional support, a falling median wage, and the public perception that this profession cannot meet the demands of a modern world. Yet we persist, insistent on assisting each other through a time of rapid change and artificial upheaval of our previously unchallenged prevalence. We must listen to the stories of struggle, lest we see a cascading failure and consequent erasure of our principles and paradigm.
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:
Much to the chagrin of the fluff brigade in our industry, I identified that a lot of our problems stem from marketing and publishing. We are trained to be quiet observers. Unfortunately, as a profession, we got too quiet. Some people don’t even think stenographers exist.
But unlike some companies that insist on publishing press releases with little substance, I see great potential in our field. Imagine if every association ran one press release a quarter or if every stenographic business ran a press release once a year. Our internet presence would skyrocket. Just to give an idea of the kind of numbers involved, I could quit my job, become an advocate full time, and donate a significant percentage of profits to steno nonprofits and initiatives. We’d be running something like 12 press releases a day. Our field could be 1% of the newswire’s daily traffic. I don’t expect that kind of success, but I’m putting it all out there because I’ve run the numbers. We are powerful. Shortage wouldn’t last long.
Unlike others that use flowery words to obfuscate the service you’re purchasing, I’ll come right out and tell you that a press release in this modern world is a relatively simple affair. You hire a Presswire-type service and that service reprints your article to its affiliated sites and blasts it to journalists in its reach. The service I use costs about $100 a release. By buying in bulk. I can bring what I pay down to about $33. This does not guarantee that people or journalists will read your release, but it does increase your internet footprint substantially. If you hire me, we can add up to three pictures and one video to any press release, as well as embed your website into the release itself.
As for pricing, if you already have what you’d like to publish together, I’d be happy to offer input, do some light editing, and help publish it at the $100 price. On the higher end of the scale, if you want me to help produce media related to the release, such as a video, we would have to discuss expectations and fit the service to your budget.
Even if you think my experience isn’t worth a dime, I’ve got honesty on my side. You know there will be zero nasty surprises. You will get a distribution report shortly after your press release showing you all the affiliate sites and channels targeted. You will get somebody who cares a whole lot about this field putting his all into the project. I cannot guarantee success, but I can guarantee that I will put all of the skills I have that have driven up the readership of this blog to work for you and our industry.
Addendum:
12/10/21. Future readers may be charged a higher price, especially for press releases with a video. After this post, I learned that these types of services can be more valuable.
