A MECHANICAL REPORTER

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22600, 4 January 1939, Page 5

A MECHANICAL REPORTER

INTRODUCTION CONSIDERED UNLIKELY CTROR OCR own CORRESPOKDERT.) LONDON, November 24. A report a few days ago foreshadowed the disappearance ot the shorthand reporter and the substitution of a recording machine. It is the opinion of the Manchester "Evening News” that shorthand writers ana reporters are not alarmed—nor have they reason to be. The reporter could never be replaced by a machine —not because the reporters would object, but because there would be such a howl of anguish from orators when they heard the results of a literal recording of their speeches as would shake the heavens. There can be few things more salutary for a speaker than to read a truly verbatim report of one of his speeches, the "Evening News” said. “It is the reporter who omits tfte ‘ers’ and the ‘urns,’ who adds grammar to eloquence, who removes the repetitions and eludes the stumblings. It is he who provides every sentence with a verb, gives uniformity to tenses, and ensures that plural subjects shall act in the plural. “And, more serious still for the orator, particularly the political orator, where would he find his scapegoat if the reporter were a machine? How could he persuade people to believe that he had never said those foolish things he was reported to have said?”