| From Court Reporter to Captioner...at Home! | ||
| By Sandra Natale, Program Manager for Education | ||
| Winter 2002 (12/01) | ||
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Would you like to be offered a job in Australia, Ireland, or London? Would you like to watch soap operas and get paid full salary and benefits? Would you like to watch sports all weekend and get paid over $50 per hour? If you said yes to any of the above, the world of broadcast closed captioning might be for you. Since the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated closed captioning of all local programs nationwide with phase-in dates in 2002, 2004 and 2006, the need for those with captioning skills has skyrocketed. Other countries, like Australia, have similar objectives and mandates in effect or soon to be implemented.  For graduate realtime court reporters, adding captioner’s skills to your portfolio can increase your income earning potential, provide a new and exciting career track to follow, and get your work noticed by thousands, perhaps millions of people!No one is more aware of the demands and rewards of moving from court reporter to captioner than the Manager of Recruitment and Training for Caption Colorado, L.L.C., Chris Crosgrove. Chris is an experienced realtime reporter and captioner, having worked as an on-air broadcast captioner for Vitac, Inc. and Caption Colorado, and having taught and directed court reporting education programs at Denver Academy of Court Reporting, the Lincoln School of Commerce and Bakersfield Community College. Currently Chris’s company, like many other caption providers, faces a shortage in effectively trained broadcast closed captioners. “Just getting your CRR isn’t enough, you need a program that gives you what it takes to compete successfully for a captioning job,” Chris said. And who better to train you than someone who hires and trains captioners after nearly a decade of court reporter training? Early last year, Chris rearranged his busy schedule to develop an incredible new tool to teach court reporters to become effective broadcast closed captioners. Not surprisingly, he calls his new course program (which has been approved for CEU credits from NCRA) “From Court Reporter to Captioner.” “I wanted to give realtime reporters more than they would get at a standard seminar. This program should give the average realtime writer virtually all of the skills captioners need in one program,” Chris explained. “Of course, every station has it’s own style preferences that you would still have to learn, but that’s very minimal. Many captioning prep courses will show you how to alter your writing, but they don’t tell you how to practice or provide that practice in a structured way, evaluate your progress, or give you the opportunity to get feedback from someone who actually hires captioners, talk with other students or have a mentor. There are also some really important things that writing improvement and CRR prep courses don’t teach you, like how to talk to master control, how and why to edit on the fly or troubleshoot in an emergency - this program does.” Chris points out that having such skills is a real advantage when you compete for the most attractive assignments. In fact, “From Court Reporter to Captioner” is a comprehensive program you can take anytime, anywhere you choose that allows you to move at your own pace. Benefits also include regular evaluation by experienced captioners and professionals who hire captioners along with a student community for support and motivation. Each student concentrates only on what he or she needs to become an effective captioner. “I really think this is what we have been waiting for,” Chris said. “It’s comprehensive and structured. It’s customized to each student, but it is not geared to any one company’s preferences." Students start with approximately 17 hours of study and practice on the nuts and bolts of captioning itself in “Captioning I: Basic Captioning Practices, Processes and Building the Captioner’s Dictionary.” This course provides a personalized writing skill evaluation, on-air dictionary list and detailed training on constructing and maintaining a captioner’s dictionary to minimize size and maximize effectiveness. By completing the course successfully, you can earn 1.7 CEU’s from NCRA.* “Captioning II: Captioner’s Realtime Writing Skillbuilding and Evaluation,” offers a personalized program of writing skill changes designed for specific writing needs as well as optional units for more CEU credits. Lesson units cover all 31 of the National Captioning Institute’s recommendations for shorthand writing modifications needed to caption effectively (as described in NCI’s publication, “Realtime Writing”). By taking the second personalized skill evaluation, you can earn up to 3.0 total CEU credits. The course also provides 30 downloadable guides to different writing changes that work for captioners. “So you can go back and refresh your skills...even long after you finish,” states Crosgrove. “Captioning III: Prepping, Practicing and Performing the Captioning Session” applies what has been learned in structured, pre-selected practice sessions and evaluates your progress while you continue to work on your dictionary. “Ideally, a student should take Captioning II and III concurrently,” Chris recommended. “That way you can really take advantage of the changes you are making and get the most out of feedback from your mentor. This is where the structure and systematic practice can really pay off." Captioning III includes approximately 16 hours of pre-selected, top-notch quality broadcasts covering news, sports and weather. “I was blown away by the quality,” said Kay Moody of the College of Court Reporting when she saw a sample of the practice video material at the NCRA annual convention in August. It includes two personalized skill evaluations to gauge your progress. After passing the second evaluation, you receive a Certificate of Completion to redeem for another 3.0 CEU credits, and you get to keep the practice materials and the 16 additional sets of dictionary entries which correspond to all of the practice segments. What kinds of income earning opportunities are available for properly trained captioners? Caption Colorado hires both salaried and hourly closed captioners. Hourly rates for on-air hours start at $55 per hour and $40 per hour for stand-by hours. Salaried trainees without certification start at $32,500 annually with benefits. “It’s also possible to work 20 hours per week hourly and qualify for some benefits too,” Chris said. Most of Caption Colorado’s captioners work from home, and the company tries to work with each captioner to accommodate scheduling preferences and needs. “But seniority does play a factor in assignments and scheduling at any company, and you have to be prepared for that,” Chris added. Course prerequisites include the ability to write realtime at speeds of 225 words per minute in a judicial or other setting. Chris recommends that prospective captioners have an interest in the news, a good working knowledge of how their realtime dictionary translates, be comfortable handling word boundary issues, write cleanly, and meet the course technical requirements. Chris informed us that “Windows-based CAT or captioning software should work well for students. Those who use DOS-based systems may have to follow additional procedures to record practice time. If this is your situation, send an e-mail with a description of the realtime CAT or captioner’s software and stenowriter you plan to use to: clcrosgrove@bak.rr.com.” Chris will reply whether your system is suitable. We asked Chris if there is anyone this program is NOT suitable for. Chris pointed out the following: “If you like a straight 9 to 5 weekday job, it usually takes a while to work into one. Some companies give you more consistency in the stations you work for than others.” Most of all, if you do not write realtime this is probably not the course for you. This course is not designed for students who have not completed a program of study at a court reporting school or have not passed a state CSR or RPR exam. Stenograph plans an academic version of the professional “From Court Reporter to Captioner” training program in the near future through Stenograph University Online Partner Schools. This version will be designed for high-speed students and schools that include captioning career tracks in their machine shorthand programs. The professional course “From Court Reporter to Captioner” is available through Stenograph University Online. “It’s really awesome,” said one court reporter who saw the sample course modules in August. “You can earn three years worth of CEU’s (3.0) for as little as $295 without leaving your house. You can’t beat that!” For more information on the course, call your Stenograph inside sales representative at 1-800-228-2339, extension 7400 or visit www.stenographu.com. You may also qualify for extended payments through an approved lease if you purchase the program with an élan Cybra writing machine. *To earn CEU credits, students must pass tests and activities with the required level of proficiency, download and print verification documents and CEU credit application forms found in the courses, and submit completed applications with proof documents and NCRA’s CEU credit application fee to NCRA or appropriate state organizations. |
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