Transcription for Nigerian Journalists

The transcription problem in a Nigerian newsroom is not volume. It is that the recording rarely sounds like the kind of audio transcription tools were built for.

A source speaks English until the sensitive part, then switches to Yoruba. A street interview happens beside traffic. A press conference has four people talking over each other. A phone interview arrives compressed through a bad line.

Get the quote exactly right

The transcript locates the quote. The audio confirms it.

That two-step is not optional, and it is the discipline that separates transcription as a tool from transcription as a liability. Search the text for the passage you half-remember, then listen to that specific moment before it goes in the copy.

Machines are most wrong on exactly the words that matter most in journalism: names, places, organisations, figures and dates. A system that has never encountered a particular politician's surname will produce something phonetically close, and it will look completely plausible in the transcript.

Record for the transcript you want later

Put the recorder on the table, not in your bag. Distance costs you more than any setting.

Say the date, the subject's name and the location at the top of the recording. It takes eight seconds and it gives you an anchor for speaker labels, a filename, and a provenance record if the piece is ever challenged.

For a doorstep or a scrum, accept that overlapping voices will be partly unrecoverable and get one clean question and answer if you can. Overlap is the hardest thing for any system.

The language question

Set the language to what is actually in the recording. Interviews here routinely move between English, Pidgin and a local language within a single answer, and choosing plain English because it feels professional is the most common reason a transcript comes back wrong.

The languages page lists what is supported and where support is partial. There is also a longer piece on why transcription tools mangle Nigerian English.

Long-form and investigations

Investigations accumulate recordings — twenty interviews over three months, and the thing you need is the one sentence somebody said in the second week.

Transcribed and searchable, that archive answers questions you did not know to ask at the time: when did this name first come up, who else mentioned the contract, what exactly was the wording. That is usually the strongest argument for transcribing everything rather than only what you plan to quote.

Working with a desk

Where several reporters share a pool of hours on one invoice, transcription becomes something the desk can budget rather than something each reporter expenses. Details are in the pricing section.

Getting going

A free account includes transcription minutes each month with no card required. Sign up and start with your most difficult interview rather than your cleanest — the useful thing to learn is where it struggles on your actual tape.