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by DanBC 4369 days ago
There are different types of shorthand. Some are phonetic; some are spelling based. Journalists should be learning teeline which is spelling based.

Journalists should not be losing details and if they are that's their failure to take correct notes, but not an expected feature of using shorthand.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8356000/8356176....

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeline_Shorthand

1 comments

Fwiw, I've never met a journalist who knew short land although I'm sure such exist. (I've written plenty of articles myself and don't take shorthand.) I sometimes record interviews, which is good practice for an in-depth interview. For lots of purposes though, you're looking for one of two money quotes and other material that you paraphrase or use as background.

In my experience, when I'm quoted, issues I have aren't so much that "I didn't say that" but that I said something longer and more nuanced which wasn't captured in the quote in question. It's one of the reasons you learn when giving short interviews to hit your key points precisely in a way that doesn't depend on a lot of context.