We don’t know if that figure includes “fringe benefits.” What are those fringe benefits? Is there a million-dollar golden parachute if the Board of Directors doesn’t rehire him? Surely, the BOD hasn’t gotten us in that predicament. Or have they?
It took the dues of 1,015 members at $300 a year in 2022 to cover just the salary of the executive director! One thousand fifteen members – you read that correctly! We don’t even know what the 2025 salary is.
We’re here to tell you that in the last 15 years over 20,000 stenographers have left NCRA. New stenographers have been minted in the last 15 years. Where are they?
What can you tell us—E.D. and BOD—about why we have lost at least 20,000 members? Where is the survey or other documentation that tells how we can get them back?
Tell us why you can’t capture new stenographers as members. Tell us why you can’t get back those stenographers that defected.
The first mass exodus occurred back in 2007 after the NCRA convention in Grapevine, Texas, when the new NCRA President at the time first brought up the concept of introducing “other modes of making the record” into NCRA. She wasn’t able to read the room. It was her way or the highway. And SO MANY stenographers chose the highway.
Apparently, this E.D. and BOD also don’t know how to read the room. Your membership has already spoken … about voice writers AND a dues increase. Why don’t you believe us? Whose interests are you looking to serve?
Shouldn’t at least one of the deliverables for $300,000 a year be to understand why stenographers have left and why new stenographers haven’t joined NCRA?
What exactly are the E.D.’s deliverables for his salary?
If allowed, voice writers will join in droves because they want to ride the coattails of highly skilled stenographers. Then, what, the E.D. gets $500,000 a year because his salary is based on the membership numbers?
If voice writers are allowed to become voting members of NCRA, the profession of stenography and the work that we do will Never. Be. The. Same.
Think about that!
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
*P.S. Thank you for sending in the information on the 2022 IRS Form 990 filings.
P.P.S. Please send this to as many NCRA members as you can so that they vote NO! to voice writers on July 24 – a VERY IMPORTANT vote.
A 1-800 is sending THIS NOTE out to every single one of their “clients”:
“Capture technology continues to advance and [we] will always provide the service best suited to your requirements. We encourage you to update language on all proceeding notices to reflect all possibilities.
“Example language you might use is: ‘YOU ARE NOTIFIED that we reserve the right to record the proceeding by stenographic means or by utilizing digital audio recording equipment or any other alternative methods of capture.’*
And in tiny font at the end: “*The above language is a suggestion. […] does not provide legal advice.”
So, even if you haven’t heard about this from the E.D. and Board of Directors of NCRA, wouldn’t you think that they would be all over, say, the American Bar Association and paralegal/legal assistant organizations to warn their members about the pitfalls of audio recording and the use of artificial intelligence in making their records? Never mind the underhanded way that 1-800 company is getting those lawyers to agree to making the 1-800 company more profitable by letting in other “capture” technologies for which, we hear, the 1-800 company pays less than they pay “stenos.”
Do you think attorneys will be okay knowing that their clients’ deepest, most sensitive secrets and confidential information are being sent through artificial intelligence companies whose fine print often reads that the AI providers actually own the voice prints of the voices (and sometimes the actual words) sent through their programs? !!!
Notice how the 1-800 lumps voice writers right in there with “digital audio recording equipment.”
So, how do you feel about just being another “capturer”?
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Do you know what types of depositions are tough to “capture” via digital/VW? Witnesses with thick accents, very technical work, and interpreted jobs. Stay tuned for staying in the on-deck circle for those jobs, stenographers.
P.P.S. Texas and California boards, what are you doing to stop artificial intelligence from being used in your states? How about spending more time fighting for the profession of stenography!
P.P.P.S. Please send this to as many NCRA voting members as you know so that they know to vote “NO!” to allowing voice writers in to our association.
P.P.P.P.S. Today, July 15, is the last day to make sure that NCRA has your information updated so that you can vote against voice writers on July 24.
How is the world dealing with these shortages? Not by getting rid of copilots and replacing them with artificial intelligence (scary thought, eh?), or by using robots to inject people with antibiotics.
The shortages of nurses and pilots are being taken care of by well-integrated scheduling.
When an attorney schedules a deposition, there is usually a conversation with the witness and other attorneys involved about their availability. Why not add the steno reporter to that conversation? “Madam Court Reporter, these are the three dates that we’re looking at for this deposition, do any of the dates work out better for you?”
Even a surprise subpoenaed witness can be coordinated with the reporter.
So easy. No need to add voice writers to the equation.
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Please send this to as many NCRA voting members as you know so that they know to vote “NO!” to allowing voice writers into our association on July 24th.
P.P.S. Please make sure that NCRA has your information updated by July 15th (next week!). This vote is so important that if you know of past steno members that have quit NCRA, please tell them that it would be a great investment in the PROFESSION OF STENOGRAPHIC REPORTING to rejoin just to be able to have their NO! vote count in this election! They can be the vote that forces NCRA to focus on the needs of steno reporters!
The executive director has the ear of every single board member. BUT he only needs to convince six of the 11 board members of the direction that he believes NCRA should go. AND membership cannot know if there are dissenters to his ideas, because he and his predecessors have convinced previous boards that if the majority agrees on an issue, the other board members must follow in lock step or be booted off the board! We are not kidding!
If he gets a fellow “bro” as a president, like he did a few years ago and this past year, things go smoothly for him. Under this (retired!) president’s past two years (president/president-elect) the VERY IMPORTANT Strong Committee was thrown out of NCRA on its ear. Now, what is one very hot topic of the day? Battling artificial intelligence. The women of the Strong Committee are light years ahead of this executive director, his bros, AND the Board of Directors. They no longer go by Strong Committee; their name now is Jeopardizing Justice. This group of very smart women had the ability to foresee the cliffs facing the profession. Cliffs that NCRA is now facing. These very smart women – right now, right at this very minute — are out there meeting with and educating decision-makers and fighting against AI for stenographic reporters!
The lazy man’s way to deal with the “cliffs” is to increase membership by allowing minimally skilled voice writers (many of whom apparently rely heavily on AI) into our association. The E.D. and the BOD are trying to have no culpability for what they have done to the association and the profession of stenography.
If you take care of the profession, if you take care of your membership, your stenographic membership will take care of you!
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Please send this to as many NCRA voting members as you know so that they know to vote “NO!” to allowing voice writers into our association.
P.P.S. Please make sure that NCRA has your information updated by July 15th (seven days!). This vote is so important that if you know of past steno members that have quit NCRA, please tell them that it would be a great investment in the PROFESSION OF STENOGRAPHIC REPORTING to rejoin just to be able to have their NO! vote count in this election! They can be the vote that forces NCRA to focus on the needs of steno reporters!
Original poster: “I have seen some posts of voice writers using … or other ASR to create their transcripts from room audio instead of through Dragon using their voice notes. Apparently Dragon isn’t working well for them. …”
Poster No. 2: “I have seen this shift in our state. Many good voice writers (not just lazy ones) are now sharing how they are using ASR off room audio to prepare their transcripts.”
Poster No. 3: “I know there are some voice reporters doing it in … and they’re dang proud of it, saying it’s just the same as what stenos do.”
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Please send this to as many NCRA voting members as you know so that they know to vote “NO!” to allowing voice writers in to our association.
P.P.S. Please make sure that NCRA has your information updated by July 15th. (This vote is so important that if you know of past steno members that have quit NCRA, please tell them that it would be a great investment in the PROFESSION OF STENOGRAPHIC REPORTING to rejoin just to be able to have their NO! vote count in this election! They can be the vote that forces NCRA to focus on the needs of steno reporters!)
Poster No. 1: I listen to my notes, fix it on my screen, and then read back from that.
Poster No. 2: If that happens, I would ask for a 5 minute break so I can listen to my playback.
Poster No. 3: Have you been able to do that? I wouldn’t think they’d be ok with it.
Poster No. 2: Yes. Judge’s in my area are very understanding.
Poster No. 4: I would not ask for a break. I would simply say “stand by” and quickly listen and repeat back what you hear.
Poster No. 5: Use your room audio.
Poster No. 6: In most cases, the readback request is very recent. And, honestly, I think reporters will agree readbacks are not a daily part of this job. Read from the screen and fill in what you missed or didn’t drop correctly (like and/in) from context and what you remember you heard [emphasis added]. They really just want to know what happened a minute or two prior and keep it moving. For a readback from 20 minutes ago, I do a quick search for a word string and do the same thing.
Poster No. 7: I also have an ear bud in. When asked for a read back, I say, of course counsel, one second please, rehear audio quickly and repeat the last question confidently.
Original Poster: What about if you have missed something? Are you doing it off of the room recording?
Poster No. 8: Yes. When I need to listen to audio to do a read back I do it off the room audio. I can play back either the room or my voice and so why not go straight to the source?
Poster No. 9: You’re absolutely right J…! [Thumbs up emoji]
Poster No. 8: I guess the only exception might be if there were a lot of long pauses. In that case, the voice audio cuts out the dead space and gives you a quicker readback.
Poster No. 10: I keep a pair of ear buds with me & slip one in if I notice that my translation is bad enough to prevent readback.
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. So this begs the question: When VWs are having a bad day, do they just run the room audio through artificial intelligence software?
P.P.S. Thank you for sending in screenshots of social media posts. Please keep them coming.
P.P.S. Please send this to all NCRA members that you know so that they understand to vote “NO!” to voice writers in NCRA on July 24.
At about 10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time yesterday, June 23rd, your Board of Directors – that has assured the entire membership that they are NEUTRAL regarding allowing voice writers to become members of NCRA, the association dedicated solely to stenographers by its constitution – announced that they hired a voice writer to educate steno reporters about how voice writing works.
The title of the free, live webinar is: UNITED BY SKILL: Voice and Machine Stenography Together
And members can earn .1 CEUs without a fee if they watch. (When has THAT ever happened before?) Nonmember voice writers will have to pay $35.
The marketing says to “Get the facts at our upcoming webinar: United by Skill: Voice and Machine Stenography Together.”
When we here at WUNCRA are asked what skill correlates to being a stenographer, all of us compare it to playing chords on a piano.
So, in terms of skill, every single stenographic reporter is a damn good pianist. Some are even concert pianists. And the best among us are so good that if we were really pianists, we could fill up a stadium like Lady Gaga, Billy Joel or Elton John.
So … what correlates to voice writing as a “skill”? Karaoke.
“Voice Stenography”? We don’t think so.
FPLT
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
Sponsoring a bylaw amendment and using the platform of NCSA to encourage members to vote in an election is a big, fat conflict!
On what planet would it be okay for a person in a leadership position with access to so many membership “ears” to think that it’s okay to sponsor a bylaw amendment?
This is the email that went to every member of the Deposition Reporters of California last week:
“To All NCRA Members: There is a very important election coming up for NCRA, which includes an amendment to allow voice writers to join the association. Please take a moment to read this message from NCSA Chair … All your votes count. Participation is extremely important!”
“Of course,” the NCSA chair’s message only discussed the election for NCRA’s VP position in June, but the board of DRA was okay with trying to “confuse” the two issues of the June election and the July bylaw amendment votes.
All of us here at WUNCRA smell the rat.
Don’t you hate seeing such shoddy sleight of hand unfold right before your very eyes?
It’s time for the chair of NCSA to RESIGN.
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Please forward this to NCRA members — especially those members that live in California — so they understand the underhanded advocacy of the DRA board.
P.P.S. Voting for the VP position of NCRA began at 9:00 a.m. today – please see the WUNCRA post from this past Friday.
Both candidates are following the Board’s “all for one, and one for all” stance by stating that they are remaining “neutral” on the issue of voice writers becoming members of NCRA. However, the opposition candidate apparently recently met with the president of the voice writers’ association for two hours. Not good!
So, if you are being “neutral” on the issue, that actually means that you are not against voice writers being an integral part of NCRA … even though the membership that you represent has already spoken with a huge “NO!” And, in our opinion, singing “Kumbaya” with the president of the voice writers’ association — who presented on “2 Methods, 1 Gold Standard” – is just too much complicity.
Still, this is an important vote. And we don’t know what to tell you, members, but there must be some reason that the Nominating Committee chose not to place the opposing candidate on their slate. And for that reason – “as the lesser of the evils” and “holding our noses a little bit” – all of us here at WUNCRA are recommending the Nominating Committee’s candidate for NCRA’s VP.
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Voting begins at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday, June 23, and runs for 24 hours
When NCRA doesn’t like the way membership votes, they just bring the issue back up again for a vote a couple of years later.
So here we go again!
This time, the tactic is that there is a list of the same old, same old that are sponsoring this bylaw amendment. And the Board has made a statement that they are taking a neutral stance on the issue because this is a membership-driven initiative, like they have no skin in this game.
Give us a break!
It is not a membership-driven initiative! Membership has voted and the vote was NO! to allowing voicewriters into NCRA. It is an initiative proposed by just 15 members. Fifteen people are not “membership.” Fifteen people are just OPTICS!
This may be hearsay, but we’ve heard from multiple sources that one proponent is actually a teacher of reporting, and when they fail their students, they encourage those students to switch over to voicewriting. Could this be because doing so GREATLY improves graduation statistics? One has to wonder if they’re even graduating ANY shorthand reporters.
This has been NCRA’s long game that began years ago when the name was changed from the National Shorthand Reporters Association to the National Court Reporters Association.
Please come on out, AGAIN, NCRA members, and vote NO! to allowing voicewriters in NCRA!
WAKE UP, NCRA!
FRANK N. SENSE
P.S. Please verify your email address with NCRA by July 15 so that you are eligible to vote to say NO! to voicewriters … again!