The Stenographic Protocol

Abstract

This chapter traces the external factors limiting the stenographers in their task, while underlining the competency and professionalism with which they executed their duties. Challenges of their work latch on to certain ‘conventions’ allegedly allowing misrepresentation, raising questions of the exactitude and comprehensiveness of a protocol and the possibilities of dictation by a superior rather than recording, and revealing the desire to have records changed. Statements attributed to the entire council, so claiming to represent a common mind, attract particular criticism. In defending their work, secretaries and notaries reveal the exercise of critical judgement as to the main direction of the meeting and the purposes of individual interventions, and the observations and mechanisms by which they sought to assure its appropriateness. Conversely, criticism usually results from a different understanding of these factors, sometimes reified in hindsight, and discontent with the material decisions presents itself as critique of allegedly flawed recording.