June 26, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Captioning and court reporting in the 21st century

There were 16,260 court reporters and captioners employed in wage-and-salary jobs in the U.S. in November 2004.

[Chart data—TXT]

Court reporters and captioners make their living by turning speech into text. Court reporters create word-for-word, written accounts of everything that is said in depositions and trials. 

Captioners transcribe spoken words from events such as television broadcasts, Web casts, classroom lectures, and business meetings. Some captioners work for themselves and do a little of everything.

In November 2004, wage-and-salary court reporters and captioners earned $42,720 at the median. This means that half of all court reporters and captioners earned more than this amount, and half earned less. The highest earning 10 percent made more than $78,840; the lowest earning 10 percent made less than $23,730. The figures do not include the earnings of the self-employed.

These data are from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. For more information, see "From court reporting to Web casting: Captioning in the new millennium" by Tamara Dillon, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Summer 2006.