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Real-Time Captioners

Outlook

The development of automated voice and speech systems—the computer programs that automatically convert speech to written text—may have some effect on the court reporting field, but there are no current systems that can accurately handle multiple speakers, and it's unlikely that such technology will exist in the near future. Therefore, captioners and court reporters will be in demand for years to come. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) predicts that employment for all court reporting occupations will grow faster than average, around 7 percent, through 2028.

"Reporters will increasingly be needed for captioning outside of legal proceedings," the DOL explains. "All new television programming will continue to need closed captioning. In addition, federal regulations have expanded captioning requirements and set quality and accuracy standards for both live and prerecorded programs. Networks will likely increase their use of broadcast captioners in order to comply with these federal regulations. Growth of the elderly population also will increase demand for court reporters who are communication access real-time translation (CART) providers or who can accompany their clients to doctor’s appointments, town hall meetings, and religious services."

Digital and high-definition TV (DTV and HDTV) also continue to make captioning more desirable and useful to more people, thereby increasing demand for captioners. DTV and HDTV enhancements allow viewers with poor vision to adjust text-size, styles, and fonts. They also allow for more non-English letters, as well as more information transmitted per minute.

Captioners should focus first on the area where they want to live and work. To caption area news or city council meetings in a local area or do conventions in a large hotel, captioners must first obtain some costly supplies. These include a laptop or notebook computer, a compatible steno writer, cables, modem, and captioning software. Captioners may also need a character generator to project onto a large convention screen.

Captioners should learn the basic real-time skills that will enable them to do any live translating or interpreting on the computer. With such skills, they will be eligible for a variety of positions, including working in a computer-integrated courtroom; taking real-time depositions for attorneys; providing accompanying litigation support, such as key word indexing; real-timing or captioning in the classroom; or doing broadcast captioning. The future looks great for those who qualify themselves to perform real-time translation.

Other opportunities for the real-time captioner include working with hospitals that specialize in cochlear implants. For late-deafened adults who learned English before sign language, if they learned to sign at all, captions provide a far greater comprehension level. Additionally, some local news stations across the country are working to expand and improve the quality of their local captioning capabilities, providing yet another source of potential employment for the real-time captioner.