WASHINGTON - Dear Sir. I suppose this shibboleth
of stenography is now considered sexist, but it's certainly one
of the most enduring brief-forms for anyone who studied Gregg
shorthand, and it has been on my mind since reading an article
with the provocative title, "Should reporters learn shorthand
for notes?"
I've considered writing a letter, beginning with the "Dear
Sir" brief-form, of course, to Rex Rhoades, the executive
editor of the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, to assure him that
some journalists in this nation take notes in shorthand.
According to the above-mentioned article, which Rhoades published
in The American Editor, the journal of the American Society of
Newspaper Editors, many journalism educators in the United States
don't think it's necessary to teach shorthand to reporters. Most
view it as a craft not as an academic discipline, and most express
attitudes not unlike those they often exhibit toward the learning
of a foreign language.
Interestingly, Rhoades quotes no practitioners, leaving me to
wonder if he could find one.
In his brief survey, however, Rhoades discovered that British
journalists find shorthand essential; in fact, Bernie Corbett,
a union organizer in Britain, told Rhoades that British journalism
degree programs require graduates to have shorthand skills of
100 words per minute.
Corbett did admit the trend of the times
is against such a requirement, and he expects it to be dropped
within the coming decade.
"No journalist ever regrets mastering shorthand, but probably
the majority in Britain now have not done so," Corbett told
Rhoades.
I discovered early in my career as a reporter that I was something
of an oddity because I took notes in shorthand. I recall covering
a small government briefing and having a colleague from a competing
newspaper look at my notes and exclaim, "I don't believe
it. I'd heard about people like you, but I'd never actually met
a reporter who took notes in shorthand." He literally stopped
the press conference to shake my hand and alert others to my ability.
To be sure, my Gregg by that time was not the same shorthand I
mastered in high school stenography class, and I had long forgotten
most of the business-oriented brief-forms we were required to
memorize, but I had developed my own hybrid Gregg with a mix of
Speedwriting and abbreviations. And certainly my speed was no
longer near the 120 wpm required to excel in the course I took
in high school.
It was embarrassing enough to be a teen-aged boy in a high-school
stenography class filled with females. Only one other male enrolled
in my steno class and we stuck to each other like the slash and
curl of Gregg that means, "Dear Sir."
Tragically, that young man died during
our sophomore year. I was left alone in steno class. I probably
would have quit but for the class being taught by a male instructor.
To bolster my confidence, the student teacher who helped that
year also was male.
Besides, for some uncanny reason, I found myself increasingly
enthralled with my classmates.
My teacher was a competent, skilled and somewhat flamboyant mentor
who occasionally demonstrated his ambidexterity by writing on
the blackboard with both hands at the same time. To say he knew
Gregg shorthand backwards and forwards was not a figure of speech.
So I mastered Gregg shorthand, but I never let anyone know. When
I started reporting, I kept my notes to myself. Even my city editors
were ignorant of my skill.
I kept in mind an anecdote my older brother related of his boot
camp days.
"All those who know how to type step forward," his drill
sergeant once barked.
My brother and a few others stepped forward. They spent the rest
of the day moving large pallets filled with typewriters from one
warehouse to another. That was how he learned never to volunteer
in the military. I absorbed the point.
I enrolled in stenography class only at
the insistence of my mother, who harangued me about having typing
and shorthand skills as "something to fall back on."
For my mother, only two worlds of employment existed: the world
of manual labor and the world of business whose entr_e came through
typing and shorthand.
Even when I was applying for colleges, my mother insisted I investigate
programs in business administration. I wanted nothing to do with
it, and by that time I was able to resist her entreaties. I will
forever be grateful to her, however, for insisting I learn to
type in high school. Learning shorthand, though, falls somewhere
in the crack labeled, "valuable perhaps but not essential."
David Carlson, a journalism professor at the University of Florida,
told Rhoades that he was eager to learn shorthand when he was
a young reporter, but his editors frowned on his suggestion that
they let him study stenography.
"Their reasoning was that if I took notes in shorthand, no
one else would be able to read them in case another reporter would
have to do the story from my notes," Carlson said.
He added that in 20 years of newspapering
no one has ever had to finish a story from his notes. Add my years
of concurrence to that observation.
In addition to learning that U.S. journalists shun stenography
and that its popularity among British journalists is diminishing,
Rhoades discovered something more astonishing.
Susan Fenner, a representative of Professional Secretaries International,
told Rhoades most secretarial curricula have dropped shorthand.
Among professional secretaries as among journalism educators,
courses in "more useful subjects" have relegated stenography
to disfavor.
Rhoades went to the public library and discovered the most recent
Gregg shorthand book on the shelf was issued in 1971. I think
I have that book in my basement and have used it for reference.
Carlson, at Florida, thinks shorthand would still be a good skill
for student journalists. He says he sees more and more students
using tape recorders, which he believes "to be a supreme
waste of time, unless the story is particularly controversial."
Rhoades underscores the problem with taping when he notes, "try
juggling tapes for three multi-source stories all of which are
due in two hours."
Alas, it appears technology will have its
day. Rhoades relates an advancing technology that automatically
digitizes voices spoken into a microphone and turns the words
into a script on a computer screen. The days of note taking, let
alone shorthand, may be numbered. Excuse me, Senator, just speak
into my laptop!
As for shorthand, it appears doomed to the way of sailboats, horse
carriages, calligraphy and fountain pens - impractical but beautiful.
But then, I'd argue that every journalist needs something impractical
but beautiful in life.
Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at arandrews@toadmail.com
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