Building a case for the humble, lowly shorthand

On a recent field trip I had the chance to meet a young journalist from The Times in London. Every time we interacted with members of the local community, out would come her little note pad. Seeing the scribbly scrawly characters, I asked incredulously, “is this shorthand?” and she said “yes, its handy, isn’t it? While both of us were using digital recorders too and were still preferring to take notes, mine were in long hand interspersed with short forms which only I could understand, hers were in pure shorthand.

Call it a bias or mindset issue, there seems to be a cultural thing when it comes to shorthand use in journalism. Media schools in the US have long since ditched it in favour of higher educational degrees, not wishing to sacrifice a course in economics or math or history or reporting in place of a course in shorthand. Britain’s National Union of Journalists on the other hand insist that most journalism jobs should have shorthand as an academic qualification and most print journalism degree programmes do insist on shorthand skills of 100 words per minute.

I remember an interview that I had to take of super cop Kiran Bedi many years ago aboard the Delhi-Chandigarh Shatabdi Express. Her look of displeasure the moment she saw my note pad was evident. After a few minutes she couldn’t resist asking, “where is your dictaphone?” I mumbled, “I wasn’t prepared for this last minute interview and am afraid am not carrying one.” Unconvinced she proceeded to add, “you are a journalist. You never know when you might need it. It should be on your person all the time. Besides, you are bound to miss some of what I am saying and even if you do capture most of it, I don’t feel connected enough, minus the crucial eye contact that is necessary for a conversation to be truly freewheeling.”