I strongly feel one should only provide transcriptions that are accurate and verified (preferably by the interviewer), otherwise you may be misquoting or even libelling the interviewee. Regional accents can make “can’t” sound like “can” and failing to annotate a response as being sarcastic can confuse the whole issue. In both cases you’d be publishing the exact opposite of what was meant.

A bad choice of transcription company (unfamiliar with cultural references or the technicalities of the subject matter) will just lead to more question marks, more corrections and the risk of overlooking something that sounded right – but wasn’t.

This isn’t just about being able to find the audio using text search – it’s about representing exactly what was said and becomes extra important since those quoting the interview would likely do so using the text version and not even listen to the original audio.

For those of us from a radio background the references have always “spoken for themselves” and, unlike print journos, we didn’t need to confirm, note down (or at least research later) spellings & details for every reference cited – be it a person’s name, little-known band, unfamiliar website or technical term.

I personally hope Google isn’t planning to index audio just yet – far too many people trust Google Translate which, for example, still translates the Dutch word for twenty (twintig) as “eight p.m.” making a mess of many news stories on one site I read! So audio automagically appearing in searches could make a real mess of a news interview and damage your reputation.. best DIY ;)

To be fair to our own press team at Absolute Radio, we do hire transcribers for major events like V Festival where lots of interviews are being carried out, and we think we might get good press out of it. These transcribed interviews are then passed on to the usual media outlets.

But it’s also fair to say that access to these tends to be limited to press, and when the same interviews appear on our website, the transcription is not placed alongside which I think is a fair comment.

The transcription cost me £12.50 plus VAT and was outsourced to, er, Richmond upon Thames. There’s a link to the company on the blog post at http://earshot.tvi.gg

I have little doubt that Google listening robots with digital ears will automate all this one day.

Although it can never be foolproof and I guess might disappoint the non-techy user who’s used to Google, I’m always impressed by the Audionix system which works on the Beeb’s internal audio logging system AutoROT.

Given Google’s reasonable accuracy interpreting my search wishes on iPhone, it can’t be far off!