The mystery of Meryl Streep’s shorthand
Posted by Andrew Grant-Adamson on November 18th, 2007
A shot which probably lasted no more than a second in the film Lions for Lambs has been troubling me. It has nothing to do with the theme of the picture but the reporter, Janine Roth (Meryl Streep), looks at a page of her notebook in a taxi — it is written in shorthand. But American reporters don’t do shorthand.
What, I have been puzzling, is the significance of that shot in a film made in American for an American audience. It can’t be to suggest a slipping in standards of US journalism, because the skill of writing shorthand has never been popular there.
An article in the New York Times of 1898 about the problems of working as a reporter in London, says: “In England nearly all reporters are first-class shorthand man (sic); in American shorthand writing among newspaper men is almost unknown.”
So far as I know, things have not changed much and in 1998 Rex Rhodes examined the differences in England and the US in an article for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
As one of those who struggled to master (partially) Pitman’s I think it was worthwhile and tell students who complain, that they will not regret the tedium of learning. When I later tried using a tape recorder I found it was too slow for daily use, although valuable as a record of some interviews. As a productivity tool shorthand is essential.
But why did Robert Redford include the shot of a page in shorthand? I can’t believe that it was done without thought, but the meaning escapes me.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Probably a simple matter of ignorance. Somebody in the prop department for the film thought, or had heard, that U.S. reporters know shorthand. Or maybe they assumed that Streep’s character, being female, would naturally have been trained in the secretarial arts (ha ha). I have seen some, very few, American reporters who use shorthand. You are correct, Andrew: use of shorthand by journalists is rare over here. It amazes me that U.K. j-schools still require it.
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Probably a simple matter of ignorance. Somebody in the prop department for the film thought, or had heard, that U.S. reporters know shorthand. Or maybe they assumed that Streep’s character, being female, would naturally have been trained in the secretarial arts (ha ha). I have seen some, very few, American reporters who use shorthand. You are correct, Andrew: use of shorthand by journalists is rare over here. It amazes me that U.K. j-schools still require it.