How Journalists Can Use the Interviewy to Help Make Recorded Interviews Easier to Use
I walked into our lab one afternoon a year and a half ago and watched from across the room as our yearbook copy editor typed away furiously at her computer, earbuds trailing from under her hair. Paragraph upon paragraph piled up in a Google Doc, and I headed over to see what she was up to.
“I’m transcribing my interview from fourth period,” she said, clearly wanting to get back to work.
“Every word, Lydia?” I asked.
“Yeah….?” she replied, with a questioning look.
“How about just the gold nuggets, the great stuff, and saving some time?”
“But… but Mr. Simons, they’re ALL gold nuggets!” she implored.
Truly, they weren’t. But hunting for gold nuggets in recorded interviews just got a whole lot easier for anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch.
Interviewy, a new free app from UK-based studio Bobblehat – a trio comprising Carl Gresswell, Adam Bunker and James Holland – helps journalists cut through the clutter and mine out those quotes and sound bites that need to make it into production. Instead of scrubbing through a timeline blindly, Interviewy helps you track back to the parts of an interview that you knew were the gold nuggets you need for your coverage.
The interface is simple. Launch the app–which can store to iCloud, if you choose–and click the “New” button. Once you’re ready to begin, swipe up to start a recording, and swipe down again to either pause it or save it. The real magic is in the “type tag” button, though. As you’re interviewing, push and hold the button to drop a tag on the timeline–you’ll see a speech bubble grow as the timeline advances to the right. Let go of the button to finish that tag, and hit it again when you find yourself listening to another outstanding quote. Again, swipe down to pause or save the interview.When you get back to your lab or computer, you open the file and scrub through the timeline looking for the type tags. Click on one, and it takes you straight to the gold nugget quote and gets you working on your coverage much more efficiently.
You can see Interviewy in action here: http://bit.ly/MvWmfj and can download it from the iTunes App Store here: http://bit.ly/1a21t0K. Gresswell and Bunker—themselves journalists—are working on an automatic transcription feature, as well as the ability to access the audio files for download and editing.
