Interesting stuff coming out of the AJE conference today. A summing up of the proceeding from the morning over on their website asks Is journalism deserting the courts? A good question and the research around it looks really good especially David Holme’s examination of the ‘marked decline’ in court reporting.
Which got me thinking…and this is me playing devils advocate…
I accept that there are some outlets that do court reporting very well; it hasn’t completly disappeared. But surely it’s now a specialist part of the reporting process.
Doesn’t that mean that one of the core reasons for banging on about the ‘essential’ and defining nature of shorthand is pretty redundant?
Image credit: Shorthand image from Sizemore on flickr
Updates and after mater:
Matt Wiggins posted about his experiences studying for his shorthand exam and got some useful comments on how the new format of the exam is going down with students.
David Higgerson mentioned this post in a post about the broader subject of the NCTJ VS. Universities debate. He picked up on a post by Roy Greenslade which challenged the NCTJ’s ‘right’ to dictate what was taught on Journalism degrees. Cue a meaty comments list with the usual mix of pompous and the positive. All of which, Dave thought, missed the important people in the debate – the students.
I commented that I thought students where at the heart of the debate after all, we all need them. We need students on courses (uni or otherwise). The NCTJ have a board of directors to pay so they need the fees. And the industry need the graduates with the right skills. But I made no apologies for raising the debate. Without a contemporary discussion of this stuff how can students make an informed decision about whats right for them.?
