Presidential debates require real-time transcribing and, now, videoconferencing services
As the November 6 election nears, there will sure be more presidential and vice presidential debates. In fact, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates, there will be one more third presidential debate in Boca Raton, Florida on Monday, October 22. That also means that once again, this live event must be transcribed in real-time for closed caption television broadcasters, live video streams on the internet and for the media to publish the transcriptions the next day.
But, while the two main front-runners of President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney may be nationally televised, the Independent Voters Network (IVN) hosted a presidential debate entirely via videoconferencing on October 18. The debate was between Libertarian candidate New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Dr. Jill Stein. According to the IVN, this is the first a presidential debate was done via videoconferencing.
Telepresence Options' report on the event states that IVN worked with Google+ Politics to create a live Google+ Hangout for each of the independent candidates. The topics ranged from tax and economic policy, energy, housing and financial regulation, foreign policy and one topic selected from user responses.
Furthermore, the questions that were used were submitted to Google+, Twitter and the IVN's Facebook page.
For companies that are broadcasting online or who need a live event transcribed, partnering with Milwaukee court reporters can be an excellent solution for this problem. This can be especially convenient, as many of these professionals are certified as real-time court reporters, which indicates their ability to transcribe a conversation or speech as it happens.
