Interview transcription: A working guide for journalists
Author: Mert S. Kaplan · Last updated: November 4, 2026
Good interview transcription comes down to three steps: take a clean recording, let a machine write the first draft, then check every quote against the audio. This guide puts its weight on that last step, where a journalist’s real work begins. Automatic transcription shortens the typing, but responsibility for a wrong quote stays with you.
Recording the interview
The quality of the transcript is settled when you record.
- Ask, and have it on tape. Say that you are recording and get the consent on the recording. Stating the date, the place and the person’s name in the first sentence helps your archive and helps the name come out right.
- Bring the microphone close. Hold the phone near the speaker rather than leaving it mid-table. If café noise reaches the microphone before your source does, no model can rescue it.
- Do not talk over them. Murmurs of agreement wipe out parts of sentences. A nod is better for the recording.
- Make a second recording. One recording is one risk.
- Note the moments that matter. Taking timecodes lets you transcribe only what you need from a long conversation.
Try it on your own recording
No card needed. 30 minutes of transcription on the free plan.
Verbatim or clean?
For a story, clean text is usually enough: you remove repeats without changing the source’s words. Keep it verbatim for a sensitive statement, for anything that may go to court, or when a hesitation carries meaning. If you want to see the difference, what is transcription shows both on the same example.
LiveType leaves fillers out, so its first draft is close to clean. If the source’s “um, I mean” is your story, listen and add it yourself.
You will find the marks and a before and after example under transcription conventions.
Checking a quote against the audio
Before quoting from automatic text, listen to each sentence you will use. These mistakes matter most:
| Mistake | Example | Why it is dangerous |
|---|---|---|
| A lost negative | “did” for “didn’t” | Reverses the meaning |
| A number | “fifteen” for “fifty” | Changes the story’s figure |
| A name | A similar-sounding surname | Puts words in the wrong mouth |
| An invented sentence | A phrase never said, after a silence | Creates speech the source never made |
| The wrong speaker | A question given as an answer | Hands the words to the other side |
One way to set this up:
- As the transcript finishes, make candidate quotes bold.
- If you transcribed a file or a video, click the paragraph’s time and the player goes there. If you recorded with the microphone, the audio is kept on your device, under Audio recordings on the page.
- Correct the text to what you hear, not to what you expect.
- See your changes in the Original text window. Show original marks what differs from what the engine wrote, and Find deleted lists removed stretches of three words or more with when they were heard. A sentence you deleted by accident shows up here.
If a source will approve the text, keep the version you sent. The Versions window takes you back to an earlier state.
Keep your source’s voice on your device
What is most sensitive in an interview is often not the text but the voice, which can identify a source. For a conversation that needs protecting, work with This device. The audio stays in your browser, and you can verify that yourself as private transcription explains.
One warning: the text is stored on the server. Use a label such as “Source 1” rather than a name, leave out identifying details and delete the transcript when you are done. Your computer and the recording file remain yours to secure.
For the legal side in Turkey, see KVKK and voice recordings.
Writing it up as question and answer
With speaker separation on, a new paragraph starts when the voice changes. Name a speaker once and it changes in all their paragraphs. Separation can slip on short murmurs and overlapping speech, so fix those in the editor.
For the published form, this layout works:
- Put the reporter’s question in bold and leave the answer plain.
- Give context in square brackets: [laughs], [shows the document].
- Mark cuts with
(...), and tell readers if you changed the order. - If the text continues in Word, export DOCX from the Export menu; speaker names go into the document.
To turn checked text into a story, see writing a news story from a transcript.
Correcting a live interview
If you transcribe a conversation as it happens, being able to edit during it brings a small extra gain. Correct the source’s name and organisation the first time they appear, and the right spelling is in front of you as you go through the text. Turkish speech to text covers what to expect with names.
Knowing the limits
- LiveType does not summarise or write your story; it only sets down what was said.
- With a very noisy recording, typing by hand may be faster. Try the first two minutes and decide.
- Legal duties around recording and sources vary by country and subject. This guide is not legal advice.
Other tools are used for interviews too; see how Voiser differs on its comparison page. The free plan has 30 minutes to try on your own recording, and longer work is covered under plans.
Works in news, software and design; founder of LiveType. Worked as a reporter for many years. Has done SEO consulting, content editing and reporting for several online news sites, and has developed many pieces of software. Currently works in the press office of the Turkish Medical Association and provides SEO support to Elips Haber.
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Try it on your own recording
No card needed. 30 minutes of transcription on the free plan.