As I pondered ‘how’ to begin the new year with my January 2004 article, wearing shorts, longing for cool Texas breezes from my open window, I pondered possibilities in September.

Michelle Coffey and I met in Australia in 2000, when I was keynote speaker for the Shorthand Reporter Association of Australia, SRAA. Judith Baverstock requested “Reporting and the Internet.” (I had written a JCR article on the topic in my dad’s hospital room. I wrote four articles, monitoring ‘machines’ throughout the nights. Judith’s invitation arrived on my birthday.)

In Fremantle, I also spoke about working with Deaf, oral deaf, HOH. My seminar was realtimed and sign interpreted in Australian sign language, a first. Michelle and I were scheduled to speak on a captioning panel. Our friendship began after the first laugh, in realtime, as we introduced ourselves. We bumped into each other after the convention, deep within the Australian Bush. A small world indeed.

When Michelle emailed she was flying to the U.S., Marty Block was ‘scheduled’ for a surprise birthday party in 2001. I asked her to be my guest. We all know Marty to be the ‘first’ captioner. I wanted to introduce Michelle to Marty and guests as the first Irish captioner in Mike Brentano’s presidential suite. NCRA staff and guests were impressed to hear Michelle flew to Boston, solely to attend the Certified Reporting Instructor program.

When I emailed Michelle in September, in realtime, she was writing me a long email. We had not written each other in months.

It is now October. Three weeks ago, I spoke on “The Colours of CART” to the Alberta Shorthand Reporters Association, ASRA, in Edmonton, Canada. Wade Garner scheduled my topics and included the president of Canada’s HOH Association, CHHA, Colin Cantlie, and wonderful speakers. I am honoured to have met professional leaders in Alberta, just as I met dedicated reporters in Australia.

Yesterday, I unpacked after the New Orleans NCRA Teacher Workshop. I laughed with teachers from the U.S., Barbados and was introduced to instructors opening a court reporting program in Botswana, Africa. What a great occupation. Perhaps as you read this January column, you will be surrounded by winter landscapes. I know when I see this ‘international’ article in January, I will be longing for spring, to open my window for warm Texas breezes. Happy New Years to each of you, wherever you live, work and enjoy life.

Michelle Coffey entered reporting in 1992, graduating with a “Standard of Excellence” award. She earned her RPR, in 1996 and her CRI, Certified Reporting Instructor, in 2001. Michelle holds a Diploma in Criminal Psychology and a Diploma in Counselling from UCD, University College Dublin. She has been the principle in her court reporting/captioning agency, Premier Captioning & Realtime Limited with her partner, Tina Kenny, since June 2001. They ‘specialise’ in realtime work, depositions, large cases and are ‘the’ live captioners for the State broadcaster.

“Captioning is a great career. There is a need for captioners no matter where you are. We are a breed in large demand, short supply. Irish live captioning is undertaken by a particularly small number of people. Two! Yes, two captioners for all of Ireland.

The first and most striking difference between captioning in Ireland and the U.S. is that we have one national ‘broadcaster’ with two stations; then there is one commercial broadcaster. The national broadcaster has produced live captions since 1993, when myself and two reporters provided captions with them. The commercial broadcaster, a commercial enterprise, doesn’t provide ‘any’ live captioning, providing 2 ½ hours of offline captioning each week.

Why 2 ½ hours? Ireland has no law regarding provision of live captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing. There is a vague reference in our legislation stating ‘a percentage of all aired programmes must be captioned,’ but that’s it. By providing anything at all, a broadcaster is complying with the law.

Sadly, we don’t have an active Irish deaf/H-O-H lobby, which may be one reason the Government is slow to enact substantive legislation.

In 1993, when we captioned with RTE (Radio Telifis Eireann), Irish Radio & Television, ‘in’ Irish. We captioned three shows per week. Each reporter was assigned one show; we each captioned that show. The rest of our time was spent in court reporting.

Since 1993, the shows requested to be captioned increased, but sadly, the number of captioners decreased, due to stress and pressures of working a full day in a realtime court; then in the evening, ‘turning to’ captioning. In 2001, the agency we worked for ceased all captioning.

In June 2001 my business partner, Tina Kenny, and I established Premier Captioning & Realtime Limited. I had a good long-standing relationship with RTE Transmission Manager, Ms. Isabel Charleton. She was delighted with our venture and supportive of our efforts.

We expanded the captioned output, but there was still only work for two people. Then, we captioned approximately 200 hours per annum. Smaller numbers result from shows brought in from Britain or America; captions arrived with videos.

Today, RTE boasts roughly 80% of their shows ‘going to air’ are captioned. We still do most captioning, but we have contractors we phone when we need holidays, or in emergencies.

As the business grew, we recruited staff, expanded our operations. We were asked to join a ‘tender process’ for a national tribunal, providing realtime and transcript on the website at the end of each ‘hearing day’. We ‘won’ this tender, and promoted daily realtime.

As the newest company in a small market, we built our client base from the national broadcaster and other production companies, to lawyers availing realtime services. Our latest expansion provides realtime writers and videographers for depositions in Europe.

Having earned the NCRA CRI certification, enables us to train in-house captioners and realtime writers. We believe in continuing education, encouraging all reporters to take the NCRA exams; we facilitate them in every way we can.

Quality not quantity is our philosophy. We are a small company; that suits our requirements. We are selective about reporters working with us, and also about jobs we accept. Our commitment is to always ensure we provide high quality service.

Ireland is very small. Court reporting/captioning has been portrayed as an IT/Information Technology career. The Irish IT industry was losing jobs at an enormous rate, ‘haemorrhaging jobs’. Therefore, people were not interested in IT careers. This resulted in decreased reporting recruits and Irish professionals willing to join our exciting profession.

Work ‘is’ work the world over, whether it be captioning or reporting, but the main thing to remember is to have a life outside your career. Reporting can be a stressful and time consuming profession. It is easy to lose yourself in the career. You have to be as disciplined about having a social life as you are about providing quality service to your customers. It is difficult to juggle a career and a home life, but it can be done.

My time is filled with running the company (alongside Tina), my home and husband, Shane, managing to caption a few hours each day or reporting in our realtime tribunal. I also teach adult literacy and computer literacy in the evenings. I signed up for a belly dancing class and love taking care of my beautiful nine-month old daughter, Amelia-Jane, who arrived hours after I finished captioning one cold winter Irish night. No matter how full you think your day is, there is always time for you; so take it and enjoy it.”

I shared the factual side to captioning in Ireland here in Part I. Part II will share the lighter, very funny side of Michelle’s world. May all your new 2004 ‘moments’ arrive with optimism, a bright smile and may you ‘enjoy it’. Michelle’s email: michelle@pcr.ie

About the Author:
Monette Benoit, B.B.A., CCR, CRI, CPE, is a JCR Contributing Editor for the National Court Reporters Association, NCRA, author of multiple books to include the state and national CSR, RPR, RMR ‘Written Knowledge Exam’ textbook, workbook, study guide, ‘CRRT WKT’ CD and the ‘CATapult Your Dictionary’ CD series. Books, CDs and articles may be referenced www.CRRbooks.com.

Monette is a consultant, realtime court reporter and CART provider. She teaches, tutors and coaches home-study students and professionals. Monette speaks to groups at state, national and international conventions about motivation, technology, expanding skills and Deaf, Oral Deaf, Hard of Hearing.

Monette may be reached at: www.CATapultdix.com, www.CRRbooks.com and www.ARTCS.com