How to write a news story from a transcript of a statement

Gather what matters

Mark up the transcript before you write a word. What is new? Who does it affect, and how? Which number, date or name would leave the story incomplete if it were missing?

Here that means: the plant opens in June, it cost 420 million, it serves 140,000 customers, the network loses 38 percent of its water, and the mayor expects the cuts to end but will not promise it. That last detail is the easiest to lose and one of the most important.

In a long recording, paragraph times help you find these passages. Taking timecodes explains how.

Cut what the reader does not need

Greetings, thanks, repetition, verbal habits like “right” and “look”, and unrelated topics stay out. The park openings go, because no information came with them.

There is one limit. You cannot separate a sentence from a condition that changes its meaning. “I’m not promising” may look like padding, but without it the mayor has made a promise she did not make.

Direct or indirect quotes?

An indirect quote carries most of a story: You give the substance in your own words and say who said it. A direct quote is for when the speaker’s own words are the point.

The leaky bucket stays in quotation marks, because no other sentence does the same work. The cost and customer count are reported indirectly. Whatever you do around them, never change the words inside quotation marks in a way that alters their meaning.

Simplify without changing meaning

Speech runs long on the page. Merge false starts into one sentence, straighten tangled word order, and replace official language with plain words. When a speaker corrects herself, as in “we’re solving this, well, we will solve it”, report the final version.

Simplifying is not summarising, and it never adds information. Do it in indirect speech. What sits inside quotation marks is what the person said.

Make it readable

• One fact per sentence, one topic per paragraph.
• Order by importance, not by the order things were said. This is the familiar inverted pyramid.
• Link sentences with logic: Cause, effect, comparison.
• Give numbers a meaning the reader can grasp.
• Explain a technical term in the sentence that uses it.

Attribution verbs and quotation marks

A reporting verb does more than say that someone spoke. It also colours the statement, and it must not suggest something the speaker did not say.

How much you quote, and how you punctuate it, shapes how a story reads as much as the verb does. The example sentences below are fictional too.

Quote sparingly. Direct quotes should not take up more of a story than indirect ones. A run of quoted speech weighs the text down, so keep quotation marks for the sentence that matters most.

• Heavy: “We’re opening the plant in June,” Doe said. “It cost 420 million,” Doe said. “We’re basically carrying water in a leaky bucket,” Doe said.
• Fluent: Doe, who said the 420 million plant will open in June, described the network’s losses this way: “We’re basically carrying water in a leaky bucket.”

Use single marks for a quote inside a quote. If the sentence you quote contains someone else’s words or a word being stressed, put that part in single quotation marks.

• Inner quote: “Customers ask us every day, ‘When will the water come back?’” Doe said.
• Stressed word: “Even calling this a ‘temporary fix’ is optimistic,” Doe said.

Use a colon before an announced quote. When a phrase such as “she said the following” or “he made this statement” announces the quote, a colon introduces it. This form suits long quotes and a story’s final paragraphs best.

• With a colon, near the end of a story: Doe said the following about the network’s losses: “We’re losing 38 percent of our water in the network, which is very high, we’re basically carrying water in a leaky bucket.”
• Without one, inside a sentence: Doe, who said “we’re basically carrying water in a leaky bucket,” called the losses very high.

Avoiding repetition

• Thin out attribution. With one speaker, not every sentence needs a name, as long as the paragraph makes it clear.
• Alternate surname and title. Full name and title on first mention, then “Doe” and “the mayor”.
• Merge the same point. If she said it three times, you write it once, in its clearest form.
• Do not echo a quote. Paraphrasing something and then quoting the same thing lengthens the story.
• Change a verb only for meaning. Do not swap “said” for “claimed” to avoid repeating yourself. That changes the meaning.

Stay true to what the speaker meant

Trimming, simplifying and headlines must not change the speaker’s meaning. Ask yourself: Could the speaker read this and say “that’s not what I said”? Conditions, hedges like “I think” or “not final yet”, and context stay in. Reporting a joke or irony as a flat statement changes the meaning too.

Fixing wrong words, names and figures

People misspeak, get an agency’s name wrong and mix up numbers. A story need not spread the mistake: Check the correct version against a reliable source, then write it.

In our example the mayor says 140,000 customers, while the city’s own document says 240,000. If it is a slip, the story uses the correct figure and reports it indirectly, so no one is quoted saying what they did not say.

Keep two cases apart:

• A slip of the tongue: The intent is obvious and the fix changes no meaning. Correct it.
• False information: An official defending a position with wrong data can be the news itself. Correcting it silently hides something from the reader. Report what was said and what is true.

Before correcting anything, make sure the transcript is right, because the error may be the machine’s and not the speaker’s. Always listen to the figure in the audio.

Balance the story

A story built on one statement is written from that speaker’s window. Who disagrees? Can the 38 percent be checked independently? What do customers say? If you could not reach someone, say so. Look at how space and order are divided as well: A controversial claim quoted twice with one line for the other side is not balance.

Find the headline

The headline is not the statement’s first sentence but its most important development. Lift the newest, most consequential fact even if it came at the end, and keep its hedge.

• Wrong: “Water cuts to end in June.” The mayor did not promise that.
• Right: “New plant opens in June; mayor expects cuts to end.”

The result might read:

New treatment plant to open in June

Mayor Jane Doe said the North Treatment Plant will open in June. She said she expects summer water cuts to end once it is running, but stopped short of a promise.

The 420 million plant will serve 240,000 customers. Doe said the network loses 38 percent of its water, adding: “We’re basically carrying water in a leaky bucket.”

Add the opposition and customers, and the story is complete.

Where the transcript fits

A transcript gives you the raw material, not the story. LiveType does not summarise, pick quotes or suggest headlines. What it does help with: With editing while transcribing you fix a misheard name right away, telling speakers apart shows who said what, and in files clicking a paragraph’s time moves the player to that moment.

Automatic text can be wrong, so check every sentence you quote against the audio. The reasons are in AI transcription ethics, steps for one-to-one conversations in interview transcription, and doing this at speed in press conference coverage.