Part of Parliament: Hansard Reporter Charlie Browne
4 min read
Charlie Browne did not know anything about Hansard before she applied for a vacancy. Now more than four years into the job, she cannot imagine a position she would enjoy as much
To be honest, I didn’t know about Hansard at all before I applied for the job. I studied linguistics at university, so I’ve always been really interested in the way people use language, but when I left I ended up doing a market research job that I didn’t enjoy.
By chance, in late 2013 I saw an advert for a position and it sounded like my dream job. So, I applied for it, got the position and began Hansard’s postgraduate diploma training course in the new year. Fortunately, it did not disappoint.
I usually explain our work to people outside Parliament as providing a translation from the spoken word to the written word – two very different mediums of communication.
There are 16 reporters who report proceedings in the Chamber every day, one after the other in a list. We each take mainly five-minute chunks of debate, which we call a “turn”. I go into the Chamber five minutes before my turn to provide an extra pair of eyes and ears for the person who is ahead of me in the list. For instance, I help them identify which MP in a crowded Chamber has shouted a particular heckle.
When that time is up, I’ll be listening to what happens for the next five minutes, because I’m responsible for reporting that chunk of debate.
I make notes on anything I’ll need to check later, like the names of companies or constituents. Then I leave the Chamber when the next person takes over and send hand-written notes to MPs to check anything that I don’t think I’ll be able to find out online.
We send our questions down to the Chamber in the chute, which is like a dumbwaiter. A door-keeper then delivers the message to its intended recipient, who will usually respond in writing or by email.
I then go back to my computer, load up the audio file using a programme called Sliq, which records all proceedings in the chambers and committees, and “do the turn”. This means that I type and edit the five minutes of debate that I am responsible for, checking all the details to make sure that they are rendered correctly - for instance, that names are spelt right and quotations verified. I don’t know what my typing speed is.
I’m a millennial so I grew up with computers. I guess I could already type pretty quickly, but it’s just been second nature since I’ve worked here. When I’ve finished I send my turn to a sub-editor and go back into the Chamber again. That’s how it goes until the end of the day’s business, whenever that might be.
In a typical day I do five or six five-minute turns and one ten-minute turn. The day could go on until any hour, but the latest I’ve been here is about one o’clock in the morning.
We have tight publication deadlines, publishing everything said in the Chamber online within three hours. This means that reporters aim to complete a five-minute turn in 45 minutes and a 10-minute turn in anything up to an hour and a half maximum.
That might sound like a long time to type five minutes’ worth of content, but the point is it’s not just transcription. We’re not just typing it out word for word; we are editing and checking facts, and that can take a long time.
We’re a group of people who often have to work together late at night, so we’re kind of forced together in a blitz spirit type of environment, which makes us a close-knit team. You just have to get on and do it; and everyone does, which is fantastic.
I feel very privileged to do what I do. It’s amazing to have a front seat on everything that’s going on in the Chamber every day. We’ve pretty much got the best seats in the House. There are debates and questions on everything, so you have to become an expert on something for a very limited amount of time and then forget it again immediately. That can be challenging, but also interesting.
Hansard is the kind of place where people stay for a very long time – often their whole career. That’s one of the nice things about it. Everyone here, even those who have gone all the way to the top, started in the same role. I could see myself staying here for a long time. I couldn’t imagine a job that I would enjoy as much.
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