The Corporation and The New Corporation wrap up my political beliefs really well. For those of you that believe lawbreaking corporations are out of control or that corporate power is threatening the sovereignty of our nation, they’re good watches. Like anything else there’s a bit of a slant and maybe even a bit of propaganda in there, but not more than your corporate overlords feed you every day. But I will warn this: They are fairly long documentaries.

One thing the New Corporation explains really well is the corporate playbook of hamstringing government and then turning around and creating a privatized solution that the investors can profit off of. Though neither documentary mentions court reporting specifically, I can draw parallels fairly easily. The corporations of our field produced a shortage through their own actions, like U.S. Legal Support buying and killing Stenotrain, and then proceeded to fraudulently press the shortage as the reason for our replacement. This opens more courts up to recording equipment and digital reporting, which the private sector has poised itself to provide while leaving us in the dust as far as their investments and attention.

Our ethics culture killed us. While we played the ethics game, the game’s rules were being rewritten — can’t have ethics if you don’t have a base of people that believe in them, and with so many retiring out, and a lack of corporate investment in our future, the only thing that is ever going to save us is a serious investment in media that makes investors aware we’re still here.

For the record, It’s been a long time since I reviewed the numbers, but the shortage is still, as best I can tell, not as bad as it was predicted to be. But the next wave of retirements is steadily approaching (2025), so who really knows what’s about to happen? And our sector is not so unique in terms of the rules being rewritten, as I feel The New Corporation makes obvious.

Anyway, enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving all.