The Real Threat to Stenography Isn’t Technology — It’s a Manufactured Crisis

The stenographic profession isn’t dying — it’s being hijacked.

Despite what you’ve been told by vendors, private equity–owned agencies, and recently invented certification mills, there is no shortage of court reporters. In fact, the profession is experiencing a resurgence not seen since the 1980s. Stenographic schools are full, waitlists are growing, and our technology is more sophisticated than ever. So why is there a sudden push to replace us?

The answer is simple: profits.

And what’s at stake isn’t just our careers — it’s the integrity of the legal record.

The Engineered Narrative

For years now, corporate players have pushed a narrative of a “stenographer shortage,” using it as cover to flood the industry with underqualified “digital reporters” and voice recognition tools. These replacements are marketed as modern solutions, but in reality, they are a trojan horse for dismantling a profession that has maintained accuracy, confidentiality, and legal trust for generations.

This movement has been spearheaded by agencies seeking higher margins and vendors like Stenograph, whose former president also sat on the board of the Speech-to-Text Institute (STTI) — the very organization promoting uncertified alternatives and unaccredited credentials. The conflict of interest is blatant.

The goal? Replace certified stenographers with digital button-pushers and offshore transcribers. Cut costs. Increase profits. And destroy the most reliable link in the chain of justice.

It’s Time to Fight Back — Strategically and Loudly

To reverse this tide, we must do more than just defend ourselves — we must go on the offensive. Here’s how:

1. Reclaim the Narrative Through Truth-Telling

We must expose the fraud of the so-called “shortage.” A coordinated media campaign — backed by timelines, data, and testimonials — can shine a light on the orchestrated push to devalue our profession.

We need:

Op-eds in legal and tech publications
Video content explaining why steno beats digital
Publicly accessible briefs for attorneys and judges explaining what’s really going on

Truth is on our side — it’s time we told it like it is.

2. Build Economic Power with Reporter-Owned Alliances

For decades, reporters took home 70% of the rate. Today? It’s often 50% or less — and agencies are pushing to cut that even further with digital substitutes.

We need to:

Form a national stenographic guild that can collectively bargain and advocate
Encourage the rise of reporter-owned co-ops to contract directly with courts and firms
Publish and circulate fair compensation benchmarks

Let’s take our economic power back.

3. Educate the Legal Community — Before It’s Too Late

Lawyers and judges are often unaware they’re being sold a lesser service. Digital reporting has serious legal consequences: inaccuracies, missing testimony, compromised confidentiality.

We must:

Offer CLEs (Continuing Legal Education) to explain the risks of uncertified records
Submit white papers to bar associations and court administrators
Organize local outreach teams to meet with judges and court clerks

Education is protection — for everyone in the justice system.

4. Expose the Sham Certifications and Questionable Practices

Alternative certifications created by vendors lack oversight, standards, and legitimacy. They are being used to give a false sense of credibility to digital services that don’t hold up under scrutiny.

We can:

Document the differences between NCRA/official certification paths and “instant credential” programs
Petition courts to require nationally recognized certifications
Advocate for legal definitions that restrict who can represent themselves as a court reporter

Fraud can’t stand up to sunlight.

5. Lead the Tech Revolution — Don’t Let It Lead Us

Stenographers aren’t tech-averse. We are the tech. Our tools now include advanced ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) integrated directly into our CAT software — not to replace us, but to augment us.

We’re still writing. We’re still in control. But we’re doing it faster and better than ever.

Let’s:

Promote our hybrid human-machine capabilities as the future of real-time reporting
Develop “tech-forward” badges to signal our use of advanced tools under certified control
Build or support software from within the steno community

Innovation should serve skill — not replace it.

The Fight for the Record Is the Fight for Truth

The integrity of the legal record is not negotiable. It cannot be auctioned off to the highest bidder or delegated to the lowest-cost contractor. Certified stenographic court reporters are not optional accessories — we are essential guardians of justice.

And we’re not going anywhere.

But we need to be louder, bolder, and more unified than ever before.

This isn’t just about saving our profession. This is about saving the truth itself from being outsourced, diluted, and corrupted.

Let’s fight smart — and let’s fight together.

Published by stenoimperium

We exist to facilitate the fortifying of the Stenography profession and ensure its survival for the next hundred years! As court reporters, we've handed the relationship role with our customers, or attorneys, over to the agencies and their sales reps. This has done a lot of damage to our industry. It has taken away our ability to have those relationships, the ability to be humanized and valued. We've become a replaceable commodity. Merely saying we are the “Gold Standard” tells them that we’re the best, but there are alternatives. Who we are though, is much, much more powerful than that! We are the Responsible Charge. “Responsible Charge” means responsibility for the direction, control, supervision, and possession of stenographic & transcription work, as the case may be, to assure that the work product has been critically examined and evaluated for compliance with appropriate professional standards by a licensee in the profession, and by sealing and signing the documents, the professional stenographer accepts responsibility for the stenographic or transcription work, respectively, represented by the documents and that applicable stenographic and professional standards have been met. This designation exists in other professions, such as engineering, land surveying, public water works, landscape architects, land surveyors, fire preventionists, geologists, architects, and more. In the case of professional engineers, the engineering association adopted a Responsible Charge position statement that says, “A professional engineer is only considered to be in responsible charge of an engineering work if the professional engineer makes independent professional decisions regarding the engineering work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional engineer’s physical presence at the location where the engineering work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the engineering work.” If we were to adopt a Responsible Charge position statement for our industry, we could start with a draft that looks something like this: "A professional court reporter, or stenographer, is only considered to be in responsible charge of court reporting work if the professional court reporter makes independent professional decisions regarding the court reporting work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional court reporter’s physical presence at the location where the court reporting work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the court reporting work.” Shared purpose The cornerstone of a strategic narrative is a shared purpose. This shared purpose is the outcome that you and your customer are working toward together. It’s more than a value proposition of what you deliver to them. Or a mission of what you do for the world. It’s the journey that you are on with them. By having a shared purpose, the relationship shifts from consumer to co-creator. In court reporting, our mission is “to bring justice to every litigant in the U.S.” That purpose is shared by all involved in the litigation process – judges, attorneys, everyone. Who we are is the Responsible Charge. How we do that is by Protecting the Record. View more posts