Transcription for journalists

In an account — free or Pro, with the same features — the transcript comes with:

Who spoke

In American English, British English and Indian English, the transcript separates the voices into Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on; you rename each label once, and the name holds for the whole transcript. In Australian English and Philippine English, it separates them too, on recordings of up to 2 hours. If the separation fails, the transcript comes without speaker labels, and says so.

A time on every word

Click any line to hear that passage; the transcript follows the audio while it plays. A quote is checked in the time it takes to hear it.

A summary that quotes, not paraphrases

For an interview: the themes, notable quotes in the speaker's own words — quoted exactly, grammar untidied — and the factual claims a reader might want to verify, which is your fact-check list.

Questions across a long recording

Ask what the minister said about the budget; the answer points to the passages and the moment in the recording they are in.

Editing in the text itself

Fix names, titles and figures where they sit, while the passage plays.

Export

Word (DOCX), TXT, SRT and VTT, on every plan — TXT to drop into the story file.

Every automatic transcript has errors, and they cluster on proper names, numbers and technical terms. Before you quote a passage, click the line and listen: with a time on every word, that check takes seconds. In reporting that is the names and titles of the people quoted, the figures, and the exact wording of the quote: the recogniser writes a plausible sentence, not necessarily the sentence said. Quote from the audio, with the transcript as the way to find it.

A press conference recorded from the floor comes back with the room in it; the feed from the sound desk, where the venue provides it, gives cleaner text. A phone interview is the phone call recording case: whether you may record it where you and the source are is yours to check. A source's voice note uploads as it is. Your recordings and transcripts are not used to train models.

Without an account, the trial transcribes up to the first 10 minutes of a recording. On Pro, each file can be up to 8 hours, within the month's included hours; what each plan includes, the pricing page shows. See plans and prices.

On long recordings, speaker labels can wander from one section to the next — a consequence of how long audio is processed, not a setting.

Name the main language rather than leaving it on automatic. Automatic detection has to decide what language each stretch of speech is in, and where a recording switches language, what was said in the other one may come back translated instead of transcribed — or not come back at all. Either way nothing is marked as missing: the transcript will look complete.

Philippine English is marked “preview” in the language list: offered, but without a quality commitment yet, so check its transcript more closely before you use it.