London College of Fashion teaches Teeline shorthand

The London College of Fashion has introduced compulsory short-hand training for students on its BA Fashion Journalism course. A course teaching traditional Teeline shorthand recently commenced and students are now beginning to use the technique in interviews.

Brenda Polan, Director of Programmes (Media) at the London College of Fashion, has been instrumental in introducing this traditional method of recording words and acknowledges that part of the reasoning behind the move is a reaction to the culture of online journalism. "All those standards are slipping as far as I'm concerned, with everybody and their dog writing their own news stories and that going out on the web - it became clear that journalists have to retrain and learn respect for the truth and accuracy. I think it is particularly important in fashion where in many instances PRs have the upper hand. We need to rekindle investigative instinct in journalists and reintroduce some scepticism."

Teeline was invented in 1966 by James Hill, a British teacher of Pitman method. Hill developed Teeline because the Pitman method was found to be too difficult for some students to comprehend and could take a very long time to learn. By streamlining the symbols formerly used, Teeline advocates claim that if you can write and if you can text, you can learn Teeline shorthand.

With 30 years experience in the industry, Brenda Polan originally trained to be a journalist before specialising in fashion and so benefited from an education which included "media law, short-hand, basic interview techniques and how the country operates." It was challenging for Brenda to find a Teeline short-hand tutor (there were just two applicants) but having now successfully appointed Andy Knudsen, she's found the feedback from students has been very positive. "The students recognise that it is tangible skill, so much of what we teach is non-tangible, there's something comforting about getting under your belt a real life-long skill." The message from this academic institution is clear - future fashion journalists should to be able to investigate their subject with intelligence and, as well as having cutting-edge technical skills, they need to respect accuracy.

Words: Marian Buckley