Shafting shorthand for modern technology

I still use my Teeline at times. Probably one of the most useful things I’ve ever been taught. Shame they have basically dropped it out of most Journalism courses these days.

I agree with you on this one Tim. A good journalist should make the copy digestible and easy to read rather than putting in every single word that was said. The craft of journalism is slowly eroding.

As a journalism student, our student journo club has tried to find someone who will teach us shorthand for over a year now with no takers. Many journalists told us we don’t need it and others had never learnt it.

When I was a journo, writing in teeline, I’d fix up the quotes of people I liked and make them sound better than they did. If I didn’t like the person I’d quote them almost verbatim. Millions did the same to George W. Bush. To be honest, I disagree with Tim though. If you want to sound good on paper, speak slower and think about your words. Plenty of journos use transcription services these days too, you can get a 2 hour interview transcribed the same day, ready for you to cut and paste. Lament the death of shorthand if you like, but technology increases accuracy.

Erm, there’s nothing that says you can’t use a recorder, jot down the time position when something is significant is said AND clean it up after.

Technology doesn’t make journalists shit, poor training, poor pay, little time to file and bugger all personality make journalists shit.

Shothand is, without doubt, the most amazing skill I have learned. (Putting aside all that accountancy rubbish). The ideal journalism course would teach three courses: (1) shorthand; (2) story writing; (3) interview skills and (4) contact management. You could throw in basic numeracy, but we know that doesn’t take you anywhere.

The first job I ever had as teen was in a transcription business. We don’t come cheap – it payed bloody well for someone who hadn’t finished their undergrad yet.

And yes, even when you do it for work it can be slow going – the vast majority of people are quite inarticulate and sometimes you have to play the sentence back 4-5 times to understand someone through all the horrid enunciation and “umm’s n ahh’s”.

A shorthand course could be a winner. If its good enough for TV court dramas shouldn’t it be good enough for journalists?

Most of the “misquoting” complaints come when a journalist deliberately spins the quote and/or doesn’t understand what the interviewee is talking about (esp common in research strories). They are unlikely to get a complaint for missing out “ums” “ahs” and the fact the interivewee said “evening” rather than “night” – those are honest mistakes and don’t mislead the audience. So no one cares.

I am a mid-20s journalist that was never taught shorthand at Uni or in the workplace, but I’ve developed my own (quite shitty) version because I also think it’s invaluable.

I disagree that the increasing reliance on recorders is about the rise of technology, although increasingly accessibility has helped. Recorders have been around a very long time! What has changed is the investment in journalists as cadetship programs decrease, which is where shorthand used to be taught on the job.

I also think the increasing reliance on recorders is due to a rising fear of being sued by pissed off people that will try to get you on mis-quoting. This is especially prevalent in interviews where rich/famous people are involved. ACP for instance has a policy of making all its journalists not only record celebrity interviews and then transcribe the whole transcript ad lib, but then keep the raw files saved for the statute of limitations on defamation. (Which is decades!)

I do agree that relying on recorders has negatives. Transcribing wastes time and this in turn makes journalism less indepth. On the other hand, when you’re spending an interview focused on transcribing, you can sometimes have less of your mind to focus on actual reporting and asking the right questions. So it’s two sided.

It’s my understanding that Fairfax cadets (if they still have them) must still learn short hand. Or at least a few years ago they made them. I think it’s a brilliant skill. Is it hard to learn? Could it be taught in high schools or are there any online videos. It would be incredibly handy to know how to do it.

I would put readability as numero uno every time . . . whenever writing is involved in fact.
My advice read it out loud.

I agree that using common sense to edit adds to the pleasure of reading, but you can’t say that it would be more comprehensive story if based real off less than exactly what was said. Any extra information above what is said in a telephone interview is added by subjective judgements that the listener/editer makes, and aren’t good journalism even if the writer is an expert in the area. To attribute this interpretation to the interviewee would be false and unethical in my opinion. Your argument sounds like a case of an fallacious belief common among people whose skills become obsolete, it is well documented in Psychology. If you like it the old way though that’s fine though, if it works I am sure it is a very satisfying way of working.

Sorry, I don’t mean to come across harsh, I am just reasoning.

Wow, that was a rant. Could have done with some editing too, HAHA.

When I had an (albiet short) stint as a journo I found that text expanding software was the best thing ever. Word has it inbuilt (edit your autocorrect settings) but you can also use system wide text expansion, plus timestamps on the recordings where the juicy bits are.

Its like digital shorthand.

Transcription is too much of a pain to be useful. (unless your budget and deadline stretches to some cheap Indian based transcription 😉

Interesting comments re shorthand, especially Willi’s comment re ‘if you like it the old way and it works for you’….surprise, surprise. Us shorthand writers are still alive…and working. With 44 years experience as a Pitman writer and Stenograph court reporter in state and commonwealth governments (and still using Pitman) to me it is a second language…you talk, I automatically shorthand it. It is a craft that many people today think belongs to the dinosaur age. Oohs and ahs a little difficult converting to shorthand, that’s why we delete them. I continue to verbatim every conversation with utility companies and those difficult ‘service providers’ …. always results in a win/win situation. More than happy to teach this craft to those who struggle with finding a quick witted, out there shorthand writer.

How quickly times have changed.

I did my cadetship with News Ltd in 2002 and shorthand was mandatory. We were not graded until we passed the 100wp/m test. Some of my colleagues were cadets for 15 and 16 months instead of 12 because they couldn’t get up to speed.

Do they really not make you do it anymore?