So, there was a group formed through some of the NCRA forums that come into our email systems. They call themselves “SOS Plan B,” and they met in New Orleans. It began under the guise of the horrible shortage of reporters around the country. Even though the group was formed through NCRA, and they met in New Orleans at the same time as the NCRA convention, these folks are very careful to say that they are not affiliated whatsoever with NCRA.
We understand that this group is calling itself a taskforce (you know, kinda like NCRA does), and they’ve sent out surveys. They’re asking questions about notary laws in your state; the use of remote court reporters to cover your book of business; about feedback received from the reporter regarding remote reporting (like remote reporting is already happening and is “standard” – we’re all so “yesterday,” aren’t we?); if non-stenographic methods can be used to make the record in your state; they want to know the relevant statutes for transcriptionists and proofreaders in your state; formatting rules in your state; whether there are rules for contracting and certification in your state. Lots of good info that would simply be “REVOLUTIONARY” for certain businesses that would just love to do all the work remotely that you’re currently doing onsite. All they need to get is a little bit of buy-in and answers to their innocent-looking survey and their Plan B becomes B-B-B-B-BAD to the BONE for the businesses that reporters have built over a lifetime of work.
Go check out the electronic recorder website and see who is being congratulated for joining as a corporate member – it’s “now something completely different” for the vice chairman of the meeting-not-affiliated-whatsover-with-NCRA-but-held-in-New-Orleans-at-the-same-time-as-the-NCRA-convention. We even have a past president of NCRA that is very proud of his AAERT membership (we seem to recall that he left before his time was up on the board, but is still able to use his NCRA past presidency as a great marketing tool for his recording transcription business).
We have another “leader” who began the threads to gather a bunch of folks in New Orleans under the guise that “the sky is falling” in the reporting world around the country, especially in California.
We are tired of hearing that the stenographic reporter is the “gold standard” for reporting. The stenographic reporter is the standard for reporting – gold, silver and bronze — and that should be the mantra that we all should be shouting from the rooftops.
A firmowner, who also happens to be on the board of directors of NCRA, wrote a beautiful article about the huge differences between stenographic court reporters and recorders. She went over the pitfalls of audios and the cons of developing technology (such as photoshopping voiceovers!). But a past president of NCRA — and a principal in one of the companies that has a tremendous amount to gain from remote reporting — jumped all over that firmowner about a thin and vague line between being a firmowner and a board member and how she should be very careful about what she posts because the readers may not be able to understand her warning that the article contained her personal opinions, and not those of the NCRA board. (Why, we all wonder here at WUNCRA, are those concepts not coming from NCRA’s board anyway?)
Here are solutions to the “reporter shortage,” just off the tops of our heads here at WUNCRA:
- Paying reporters a fair wage for their skills and talent and copy sales!!! Betcha there wouldn’t be “shortages” if we got back to paying reporters what they should have been paid all along. It is a travesty that salespeople at 1-800 firms are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while the pesky talent is getting the coffee grounds left in the bottom of the mug. We think that most reporters can sell the profession of reporting, but how many salespeople can stenographically report a deposition?
- Firmowners need to network, network, network.
- This perceived “shortage” will scale back those contracts that started the decline of the profession.
Our fellow reporters, a conversation is trying to be changed with our help and under false pretenses. That conversation is SOS Plan B – BEWARE!!!
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense