I have used Pitman 2000 shorthand for almost every day of a 37-year-long journalistic career that has taken me, as a Financial Times (FT) reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and columnist, from London to Brussels, Milan and New York, and back to London again.
But even though I and thousands of other journalists still find shorthand an invaluable tool of our trade, it is worth posing the question: is shorthand in journalism a dying art?
The good news
First, the good news. Shorthand – mainly the easier to learn Teeline, rather than Pitman – is still taught to trainee journalists across the UK. Online training in Teeline is still made available to FT journalists as one of many in-house professional development options. My son Tomás, 27, now a sports journalist, learned Teeline as part of his training.
The course I took, more than three decades ago, covered basic writing, editing and headlining skills; law for journalists; courtroom and local council reporting; and typing and Pitman shorthand, where we were required to gain proficiency of more than 100 words per minute (WPM). My recollection is that I achieved a speed of 130 WPM, enough to earn the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) qualification in “Practical Journalism”.
That said, plenty of my colleagues struggled to make the 100 WPM threshold, because it was hard work: at least one hour of shorthand teaching per day, plus homework, for five days a week, over five and a bit months.
Why learn shorthand?
Young reporters should still learn shorthand, for five main reasons:
- Speed. Voice recording has its place – I use it when I am conducting a full hour-long feature-length interview, for instance – but as a way of reporting and then transcribing verbatim quotes instantly, shorthand cannot yet be bettered.
- Clarity. For note-taking in noisy places, such as “vox pop” interviews of people in the street, good shorthand is superior to most recording devices.
- Certainty. When technology fails – and it still sometimes does – I always have an accurate written note.
- Accuracy. Here, a recording might prove definitive, but in a world of AI deepfakes it might yet turn out to be hard to rely on. At that point, the supporting note, taken on the spot, would be vital.
- Proof. In libel cases brought against newspapers, courts in the UK give weight to a good contemporaneous shorthand note, properly dated and filed, when considering whether the journalist is reliable and diligent. An easily altered recording or note on a laptop is considered unreliable.
Verbatim quotation
Accurate verbatim quotation in journalism is paramount. Examining Finnish journalists’ use of quotations, Lauri Haapanen (2020) describes how a journalist had included a quotation from a source about international markets in an interview, even though those exact words did not appear in the transcript. The journalist explained that “he wanted to ‘let the interviewee say the main point’, even though the quoted phrase was never actually uttered during the interview”. Based on this, the researcher claimed that journalists “do not aim to transform spoken utterances into a written format as verbatim as possible, nor to maintain the exact meaning of these utterances”.
The claim is wrong, at least as far as the gold standard of British journalism is concerned. “If a reader reads something in direct quotation marks … he/she is entitled to believe that the reporter can vouch directly for the accuracy of the quote”, according to the Guardian’s style guide (2015). The confection of quotations amounts to journalistic malpractice.
If I do have to break up a larger quote, I will indicate the gap with an ellipsis – three dots or period marks – or square brackets round words not directly spoken. Otherwise, I would always use indirect speech.
Shorthand in the newsroom
Back to the good news: not only are there still strong practical reasons for journalists to use shorthand but legal requirements are helping to keep the art alive in the UK.
It is still judged to be contempt of court in the UK to take photographs, to film, or to make sound recordings in courtrooms or court buildings. Shorthand is, therefore, indispensable for reporters covering court cases. Indeed, when the NCTJ surveyed news organisations in 2022, it found that 82% still thought shorthand was “essential or desirable” for at least some roles (NCTJ, 2022).
But responses to the NCTJ survey split along sectoral lines. Employers in regional and local newspapers maintained requirements for shorthand – particularly for journalists covering courtrooms and local councils. At the other end of the spectrum, broadcasters, perhaps understandably, believed transcription tools and recording devices were adequate.
This is where the good news starts to run out. Newsrooms may agree that good shorthand is “desirable” and editors of my experience might still consider it a recommendation on a job application. But it is hard to see how a full-time reporter can expect to achieve a useful speed in Teeline through a part-time, online course. Indeed, when I checked I discovered that although 28 FT colleagues requested online shorthand training in 2019, only 12 did in 2020, and no more than eight have in each of the past three years. As one magazine editor told the NCTJ survey: shorthand for them is “not a requirement at all – at most it’s a nice to have”.
US journalists seem to have given up on shorthand long ago. A former editor of a leading US news magazine from the mid-1990s to 2008 told me recently he had never come across a reporter using shorthand.
Exam bodies have already bowed to the reality. Since 2016, what was a compulsory part of the NCTJ exams has become an option. Shorthand is now an “elective” module. The decision recognised not only that mandatory shorthand was excluding trainees who might be physically unable to practise the skill but that there are many other skills – from data journalism to podcasting – that trainee reporters might find more useful to acquire in the time available on most training programmes. NCTJ head of qualifications Lyn Jones, interviewed for my recent article in the FT Magazine, says the council still “absolutely defends the value of the skill, but we do appreciate that there are other jobs and roles in journalism where it isn’t actually used” (Hill, 2024).
My old shorthand teacher, Sylvia Bennett, told me that the level required had also fallen. When I took my exams, I submitted to a four-minute test of continuous shorthand that we then had to transcribe. The test is now divided into two segments of two minutes with a 30 second break. At faster speeds, the test consists of a two-minute dictation, a 30 second break, a further one minute of dictation, then a 15 second break, and a final one minute, from which the candidate must render a short quotation accurately in order to pass.
Meanwhile, with the help of artificial intelligence, the combination of voice recording, voice recognition and automated transcription is becoming more accurate and more efficient.
Shorthand versus technology
Perhaps the legal requirements, the need for shorthand reporters in court cases, and a recognition of the usefulness of instantly readable shorthand notes when under pressure will keep shorthand alive for younger generations of reporters.
Identifying key quotes from even quite a short interview is still easier from my shorthand notes than from a long, sometimes garbled transcript. And the level of concentration required to bring the spoken word via shorthand to the notebook page helps, in my view, to cement the key points of any interview in my mind – it is, in other words, a vital step in the construction of the eventual article. Research has in fact shown that writing down and reviewing material helps the notetaker process and recall information (Friedman, 2014).
Angela Catto, who taught shorthand to my son, told me that she had so far found it surprisingly easy to encourage young trainees to learn Teeline shorthand – even though it was no longer compulsory. She asks those who think they can rely on digital tools: “Do you want to be in a position where you don’t have a news story because your tech has failed?”
Even so, summarising the gist of a transcript, using generative artificial intelligence (AI), is easier and easier. Properly trained to identify the key passages, based on the objective of the reporter, AI could start to make the task of reviewing a transcript fast and simple.
Speedwriters have over time adapted well to technology in court and parliamentary reporting. However, even in those specialist areas, pen shorthand has gradually declined. And AI, alas, still cannot do the one thing that would make it indispensable: accurately transcribe shorthand notes.
Andrew Hill is senior business writer at the Financial Times and consulting editor, FT Live. He is working on a book about the past, present and uncertain future of shorthand.
References
Guardian (2015). Guardian and Observer style guide. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-q
Haapanen, L. (2020). “Reporting spoken interviews in journalistic quotes”. Tiro 1/2020. Available at https://tiro.intersteno.org/2020/05/reporting-spoken-interviews-in-journalistic-quotes/
NCTJ 2022 = The Importance of Shorthand: Industry Consultation, National Council for Training of Journalists. Available at https://www.nctj.com/news/nctj-survey-finds-82-per-cent-of-journalism-employers-regard-shorthand-as-important/.
Friedman, M. C. (2014). “Notes on Note-Taking: Review of Research and Insights for Students and Instructors”. Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching. Available at https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/hilt/files/notetaking_0.pdf
Hill, A. (2024). “Where shorthand note-taking refuses to die”. FT Magazine. Available at https://www.ft.com/barrier/corporate/83540dc9-b355-4998-bda2-2b888fe45b79
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