Use Tape Recorder...Yes or No

How can you rely on a recorder too much? By using it to accurately take notes?
Using a recording device is no different than using Google to find out information as opposed to researching it the old-fashioned way or using a computer to write stories as opposed to a typewriter.
Technology makes things easier and it isn't always a bad thing.

 

I just trust my notes and have learned my own version of shorthand over the years.

The time spent back-tracking through the tape/interview simply isn't worth it to me. I can turn around a story much quicker without that added task.

The biggest advantage to having one in my mind is being able to become more engaged with your interviewee, but I've learned to make eye contact while scribbling notes.

You also have the added problem of some people being uncomfortable being recorded and when they are it comes out in their quotes. Of course, many of perfectly fine being taped.

 

I'm sure others have, and I just knocked on my wood desk, but my digital recorders have never crapped out on me. And like I said, I always carry at least two.

 

Rarely if ever run into anyone gun shy about being recorded ... unless the thing is being waved in their face ... I try to be subtle and major on the eye contact ... will shield my recorder under my notepad if I sense there is an issue ...

 

I have used two Olympus recorders in my five years of doing this. I haven't lost a single interview, but once I got a Droid, that became my backup.

 

Here's my concern as an editor.

I think you're OK -- well, right -- to digitally record all of your interviews. But you should take a lot of written notes, too, and if you don't, that's a problem.

What I have run into occasionally over the past few years is writers who won't write until they go back to wherever and transcribe every word off the recorder. That process can take a long time, and it presumably has included every word, including a lot of words that have no hope of making it into the story.

So that's a big time drain, and it delays stories getting written and filed, and that has been an issue in some of these cases.

So take a lot of notes, fast forward through your tape to skip the things you don't need, and get writing. Use a digital recorder, but don't be a slave to it either.

And Rhody, you and are are going to have to agree to disagree on "verbatim" quotes, unless every time you quote somebody, you're including every "um" and "er" and "well" and whatever other sounds people make in between the words that matter when they're talking. I'm going to say something I think is true: Not a single person in sports, anywhere, was quoted 100 percent accurately in today's papers and on today's websites. Not if you're playing it absolutely zero-tolerance in terms of leaving anything out or tweaking a single word.

 

I nearly always use written notes, too, to complement the recorder. I usually draw a star and time next to quotes I know I'm going to use.

If I"m on a hard deadline, I usually rely pretty heavily on the written notes and use the recorder to confirm wording, et al. If not, I'll transcribe.

 

this

 

@ Dan Hinkling...I may be wrong about this, but in college we were taught that you had to disclose if you're recording a conversation, so sneaking it under your notepad unbeknownst wouldn't be an option. Perhaps that's a law that varies state by state?

 

SF, I think we're on the same page with quotes. Any pauses in speech - an 'um' or 'well' - I'm taking out, but if someone speaks horrible English, it's going in.
I agree with your note-taking post. Too many times people don't take notes for anything. Transcribing every word is tedious, but if you know what you're doing you can listen to a 2-3 minute interview and have no problem filtering out the b.s.

 

If someone speaks such horrible English, shouldn't you just paraphrase instead? I've heard differing opinions on this, but I know if I was interviewing a Little League kid -- or hell, even a high school or college kid or a coach -- and a quote was chock full of bad English, I'd just paraphrase and not quote. I'm sure there were exceptions, but they were few

 

Yeah, I think we basically agree.

And mjp1542, this is an age-old discussion and might even be referred to as the Larry Bird Rule -- whether to clean up grammar and syntax in quotes or not. AP says never to do it -- but I 100 percent guarantee you, every AP reporter does.