Use Tape Recorder...Yes or No

Especially when you're talking to kids, sometimes they'll freeze up when they see a tape recorder. So I just take a notepad and hide the recorder underneath it.

 

That's not a hangup. You're right.

 

In this day and age if a kid 'freezes' in front of a recorder...instead of hiding it, explain briefly that this helps make sure you get them quoted right. I think they are tech-savvy enough to understand it helps your job.

 

I disagree with this one. If you're just looking for quotes to fill out your story, that can take 2 minutes. But if you're asking questions and trying to learn something you didn't know before the interview started, that can take longer than two minutes.

I use a recorder except for when I'm on deadline. I just can't find my quotes fast enough and type them fast enough if they're on my recorder. Maybe that makes me slow.

 

I don't think the point is kids have never seen a tape recorder before. I think it's more that it reminds them that omyfuckinggodi'mbeinginterviewedforthenewspaper.

 

Well, if they use 46-letter words like omyfuckinggodi'mbeinginterviewedforthenewspaper, you probably don't want to quote them verbatim, either.

 

I agree, it shouldn't take more than two minutes to get what you need for a game...I typically pull a kid or two aside try to get a quote from each, then grab the coach for each side before they hit the locker room, then I'm back to the office and cranking the story out.

If deadline's not an issue, then hang out for a bit and do longer interviews when the team comes out of the locker room, or show up at practice.

 

I'm with the school that says it doesn't have to be verbatim if verbatim is distracting to read and only serves to confuse what it is the coach or player is trying to say. That said, I don't think you can put words in anybody's mouth. But I think you can delete excessive superfluous words. Here's a small example. "You know" "Like" "I mean." Some subjects use these conventions excessively. You just don't need all of that. Sometimes, a "You know" will make it more clear the way the subject was coming across. It could denote the tone of the quote. Then it's valuable. But if it's just a nervous habit the subject can't break, who needs it? I've been doing this for more than 20 years and I've never had anybody challenge me on a quote. Ever. That's good enough for me.

 

A little bit of a threadjack, but ...

While I'll admit there are certain instances in which deadline issues force you to use the first canned quote you can find, in general, if your interviews are only taking two minutes apiece, you're doing it wrong.

 

If you're writing 400 words on a high school soccer game on deadline, you do what you need to. If you're writing 800 words on an NFL game, you take a little more time even if it means filing a no-quotes version.

 

I don't transcribe full interviews any more. Even for features. There's no point. I know where the crucial quotes are. Total waste of time.

 

covering a high school football scrimmage this weekend I walk up to the coach and the first words out of his mouth are, "I like that you use a recorder." to him it wasn't so much that he knew the quote would be accurate, it was that he knew he wouldn't have to wait for two minutes after every question while I wrote stuff down. I've done a few interviews without the recorder, usually phoners while I was typing and talking to the person, and it alters the way I conduct the interview. I end up truncating a longer quote just so I won't have dead air over the phone.
and if you're worried about transcribing a long interview on deadline, try asking all game-specific stuff in the first few minutes and the stuff you'll use for notebooks and features later on.