Court Reporters and Broadcast Captioning
Posted by FergusIf you've ever used the closed captioning feature on your television, chances are you've wondered how it's done. This is where broadcast captioners come in.
Broadcast captioners are often court reporters who are working on the side to provide real-time captioning for live TV broadcasts. These broadcasts can include sporting events, speeches, news events, or awards shows airing on local stations, national networks or cable channels. (Recorded TV broadcasts are captioned before airing.)
During live captioning, the court reporter listens to the broadcast and types the words into a stenotype machine, which uses software to add the captions to the television signal. The captioning aids viewers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to understand the broadcasts, although it's also helpful for people trying to learn English, those watching TV in a noisy environment and those who want to avoid making noise while watching TV.
Broadcast captioning is an in-demand field, with the Telecommunications Act of 1986 mandating that all new television programming has to be closed-captioned. Although there are currently around 30 million deaf and hearing-impaired people living in the US, more than 100 million Americans use closed-captioning every year. That figure accounts for the 30 million for whom English is a second language, plus another 40 million-plus who use it for its convenience.
Posted by Gary on 4/1/09
Nice site, you have lots of good resources for court reporters!
Posted by Olso on 5/1/09
Thanks Gary, we try hard. Cheers.
Posted by louise martin on 18/2/09
I want to be officially trained to become a court reporter/other and I am unable to find an accredited program in my town in Taunton, Massachusett. I am in a 30 mile radius of Boston and I have earned my Associate of Science in Legal Office Administration in June of 1993. I have been home because my husband had 5 strokes and died in 1998. I could not get a job. I did physical/idustrial work for three years after much medical hardships hospital my husbands physical handicaps blindness so forth and I am a little homebound myself by way of I keep to myself am shy and I don’t like to or can afford to get all dressed up and not necessarily like people person situations and was wondering if I could work on medical transcription by machine hooked up at home and make money or pass the National Court and Conference Reporter and become professional and I saw the other new things CART, Scoping, Captioning. I have experience working at Superior Court as a Procedures Clerk a long time ago. I more experienced and aged now. I would like to look into a career at home/in court/medical somehow. What kind of equipment is updated now.?What is the best out there now for education and/or ongoing program accredited to this area? Do I have a chance a this line of work to go on in my life and make something out of this in my goin on years I am in my 50’s now. Please rsvp. Thank you Louise louisemartin1953@yahoo.com
PSS What should I be looking at this time?