Celebrating National Court Reporting & Captioning Week 2021
For the past 8 years, The National Court Reporter’s Association has hosted a week-long event to spark interest in the wonderful career path of captioning. Now celebrating their ninth year, the theme ‘All You Need is Love and Steno’ brings court reporters, captioners, court reporting firms, schools, and others in the legal industry together to help highlight the many aspects that make court reporting and captioning a viable profession.
We LOVE this celebration. It would be an understatement to say captioners are the heart of NCI. They are involved in constant current events research in order to provide the highest quality captions, ceaselessly broadening their world knowledge. Their schedules combined cover 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Captioners are on the communication front lines for national disasters, breaking news, tragedies, celebrations, sports games and events, government councils, college lectures, and so much more. In emergency situations, they help deliver life-saving instructions to households across the country. Without them we literally would not have this amazing non-profit organization and deaf viewers across the globe would not receive the same information in real time. We thank them today and every day for the outstanding service they provide.
As this particular week is about sparking interest in and informing about the captioning profession, we asked a few of our NCI captioners to speak a little about the vocation:
(PS. If you're interested in NCI Job Openings, we’re always hiring captioners!)
“I sometimes think it’s strange that when I started this career I thought I was going to get paid to watch TV. This job has evolved into so much more than that, when, honestly, it was never even “just watching TV” to begin with. It’s evolved so much since I started, a lot of my days are spent now captioning something other than broadcast TV. It’s fun to learn about different subject matters I wouldn’t ordinarily research on my own. It’s become rewarding knowing people benefit from my job in a lot of different ways than when I started.”
“Growing up with a parent who is hard of hearing, we constantly had captions on when watching TV or movies. I never seriously considered the essential work being done behind the scenes to provide this service until I looked into NCI. Now I am truly grateful to have a job captioning to make sure people like my parent and those who are deaf can have access to the same information as everyone else.”
“I didn’t have television the entire decade of the ‘90s. And the first thing that struck me when I had access to cable television in 2003 was captions available in programming. I saw the variation in accuracy and I thought it didn’t make sense to have captioning if it wasn’t accurate. I have an English degree, and I started wondering how people were hired to be captioners. Not long after this thought bubble, I found a Craigslist ad for Voice Writers at NCI. And it changed my life. The only thing that strikes me about that is, while it changed my life, the service I was doing was changing and aiding the lives of others. It’s been the thrill of my life.”
“I used to run a store that had a deaf customer who came in every week. Being unable to communicate with him beyond my rudimentary sign language skills was frustrating and also eye-opening. If I was frustrated, how did he feel on a daily basis? Fast forward through life, moving, and a new job, as often happens, those interactions with him got pushed behind other moments and memories. My new job had gotten to the point where I needed a new challenge; I needed to find a job that meant something to me. Call it fate, call it what you will, but I randomly looked at Craigslist one day and saw a job posting for Voice Writers at NCI. What struck me most is that I would finally be able to use my English degree to some extent and, most importantly, I’d be able to do more than just flounder with my poor grasp of ASL. I would have the chance to help an entire community gain access to something I’ve taken for granted my entire life. That is what drew me here and that is what keeps me here.”
“I’ve always been most at peace in my life when I knew my work puts real value into the world, helping people. The knowledge that I am making life more accessible for all human beings is quite a nice thing to have participated in. This job is in real time creating a record even when other places it might be stored could be altered or destroyed. Creating a legacy of what we are at this exact moment will be so important.”
“I really do think being a captioner has made me a better person, citizen, friend, and neighbor. We keep up on all sorts of issues from all over the U.S. and the world, so I can more actively participate in conversations. Literally, if it’s in the news, we’re captioning it, including archival footage from historical speakers, live sporting events, and current events as they unfold, including snow storms in New York, car chases in L.A., and breaking news out of federal, state, and local governments. It’s fascinating to be a captioner!”