Is this answer due for an update due to technology? How much has reliance on the stenotype been replaced by video and audio recording, and/or speech-to-text technology?
(My guess is, not completely but it’s getting there.)
The courts I appear in in Canada don’t use a steno. It’s all recorded electronically. I’ve never seen a steno in court.
I was in court (auditioning for jury duty) about 8 years ago. It was fairly clear that everything was being audio recorded. But there was still a steno clerk there, with a steno machine, and a big tangled heap of tape piling up on the floor.
I had dinner this evening with an attorney friend and, remembering this thread, I asked him about steno. He said the last time he was in court, the stenographer wore a mask and simply repeated the testimony into a transcriber.
That’s funny. Does it still require months and months of training?
Here is an article about it.
What isn’t clear to me is exactly how this works (physically, I understand it technically). The nice thing about the steno machine is that you could type faster than most people can speak, which allows you to attribute quotes to people, etc.
But if the information must now be transmitted through your own voice, you are now limited by how quickly you can talk. In order to record attributions and other notes, you have to be able to accurately listen to what people are saying and then talk faster than they are talking.
I suppose that, in practice, the Uhs, Hems, and Haws take care of it.