Closed Captioning Blog

Looking for a dream job? Certified realtime stenographers can set their own schedules, work from anywhere in the world and can make six figures a year. Mirabai Knight, a stenographer in New York, composed a six part article on her website entitled “What Is Steno Good For?” It’s an insightful look into the career of stenography and the challenges that steno students face. In “CART, Court, and Captioning,” Knight describes the current debate of stenography vs. speech recognition software. She argues that although voice recognition software is constantly improving, it will never be perfect. Knight notes, “Its theoretical ceiling of improvement is far below what’s required for consistent, reliable transcription… It has no ability to use context or meaning to change sounds into words. It records audio waveforms, breaks them up into little bits, and compares them to a database of other audio waveforms. It never finds a perfect match, because no two humans say the same word in exactly the same way each time.” The voice writer is also at a disadvantage when it comes to homophones (words that sound alike) whereas the steno writer has many options to resolve homophone conflicts. Steno writers also know exactly what will appear on the screen with each stroke, whereas voice writers are relying on the computer to interpret accurately what they are saying. Sadly, because it takes money and lengthy training to become a realtime stenographer, many students are turning to voice recognition software instead. This shortage of CART providers and captioners has led to many companies hiring “untrained voice writers, deciding that their output is good enough, and dropping both standards and wages accordingly. It’s a sad situation,” says Knight. Knight’s fear is that more people will choose to learn voice recognition because it is significantly cheaper than purchasing a steno machine and the required software. Her goal is to make steno machines cheaper and more mainstream so that this discipline has a chance at survival. For information on stenography as a profession, visit Knight’s website at:  http://stenoknight.com/index.html.