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Huseby Applauds Congress's Help for Realtime-Certified Court Reporters
© COPYRIGHT HUSEBY, INC. 2008

As of this writing, there is a bill on the President's desk that will provide educational grants to increase the number of real-time court reporters. These reporters are needed to provide captioning of live television programs for deaf and hard of hearing viewers.

Television Captioning Creates New Opportunities for Certified Court Reporters

American television aired the first closed captioned programs in 1980. These captions allowed deaf and hard of hearing viewers access to many television shows they had been unable to watch before.

At first, only pre-recorded programs had captions but it wasn't long before the community wanted captions on live programs such as the news and sporting events. Where would the television industry find people who could transcribe in real time?

They quickly realized that certified court reporters had been performing just such a service since before television existed. Many of Huseby's court reporters were contracted out to local television stations to provide captioning, but some programs still went uncaptioned.

The Demand for Certified Court Reporters Increases

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated that all new English television programs be broadcast with captions by 2006. Huseby saw a huge spike in demand for our certified court reporters experienced with real-time captioning.

Unfortunately in this same period Huseby, like any other court reporting agency, saw our supply of reporters dwindle. Many people feared that technology was making the profession obsolete and enrollment in court reporting schools fell.

We saw the majority of court reporting schools close and suddenly there were very few new graduates to hire. As the 2006 deadline arrived, stations were still not broadcasting all English programs with captions. The television networks were trying, but the needed reporters just weren't there.

Congress Takes More Action

In 2007, the Higher Education Reauthorization bill was introduced to Congress. This bill included a provision for grants to educate a new generation of certified court reporters to meet the needs of 30 million deaf and hard of hearing Americans.

Although we were optimistic about the bill's chances, we watched nervously as it made its way through the unpredictable currents of the federal government. To our great relief, the bill passed the House of Representatives in February 2008 and the Senate in July.

With the President's signature, the bill will become reality later this year.

The new grants this bill will provide will make it easier for students to get the education they need to become real-time certified court reporters. As the supply of reporters increases it will ease the burden felt by television stations and our nation's court systems alike.

Although we applaud this bill, Huseby has been in the business long enough to know that this is just one step in the process. We work to inspire young people to seek rewarding and lucrative careers as court reporters. In a few years, we hope we can help reverse the trend so that our society has all the reporters it needs.

Huseby, Inc. provides premium worldwide litigation services with Registered Professional Court Reporters, Certified Legal Video Specialists, state-of-the-art videoconferencing, trial presentation and mediation services. Call us or schedule online for all of your real-time and verbatim court reporting services, bates stamping, document and exhibit scanning and management, videotape services, coding, electronic transcript and advanced litigation support needs

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