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Digital Recorder Woes

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by HeinekenMan, Jan 23, 2007.

  1. Spot on. My hand-written notes aren't always good or complete, but they've saved me more times than I can count when my recorder went dead, wasn't picking up a voice, whatever.

    Doesn't seem like a chore at all when you consider the alternative. I know this has been discussed here before, but I cringe every time I see somebody just holding their recorder out and nodding.
     
  2. spup1122

    spup1122 Guest

    Just and FYI for all your digital recording fans out there...

    Be careful putting your digital recorder and cell phone in close quarters together. If your phone rings much while they're in the same pocket or a bag or coat (even on silent) the cell phone could erase the recordings for you and make the recorder nearly impossible to use.

    I worked in a computer lab in college and people came in with floppies, zip disks, and thumb drives that were all erased and unusable after being in a bag with the cell phone too much. We had a few people with digital recorders come in and we couldn't fix them. We at least had software to fix the disks.
     
  3. scribe21

    scribe21 Member

    like the mini-cassete myself and pen and paper.
     
  4. satchmo

    satchmo Member

    I do both — I take notes and record my interviews using one of those fancy Olympus recorders that I can import onto my laptop because it's also a flash drive. That said, my editor brought up an interesting point the other day. He was going through a story by one of the reporters at my paper on one of the "big" beats and he said it was all a bunch of meaningless dictation. I asked him what he meant and he told me that he never uses a tape recorder because it always ends up being long, rambling quotes when a paraphrase would do. I asked him how he knew what to right down when he was interviewing someone or if he had great shorthand. He said, "If it's good enough that I right it down, that means that I knew it was good enough to make it into the story. If you can't remember it two minutes after your interview, there's no way it's good enough to make it into print." Thought he had a valid point. Writers don't paraphrase enough, either. You think Joe Blow cares exactly what Coach Smith said, or the gist of what Coach Smith said?
     
  5. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    No, but Coach Smith's attorney does.
     
  6. EStreetJoe

    EStreetJoe Well-Known Member

    I think the point was does Joe Blow care if you just paraphrase coach Smith without quotes or if you quote exactly what he said. For instance, which would Joe Blow want to read more:
    -- "Jones gave us a strong effort out there," coach Smith said. "He was playing through some pain after getting hurt early in the game, but he still came through big-time for us."
    OR
    - Coach Smith said that Jones played through pain to give the team a winning effort.
    (and then mention the injury in the previous paragraph or the next paragraph)

    And in the above examples, I don't think Coach Smith's attorney would care which one you used either - the exact quote or the paraphrasing.
     
  7. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    Point taken with the paraphrasing and I completely agree.

    I was addressing the "never uses a recorder", portion of the editor's theory, which is fairly idiotic. As if the recorder was the mechanism that generated the "meaningless dictation."

    Long, rambling quotes don't put themselves into the paper, after all. A reporter has to learn what to pull off an interview tape and work into a story. That's why most of us, I think, take notes while we make a recording.
     
  8. EStreetJoe

    EStreetJoe Well-Known Member

    jgmacg -- for every one reporter you see taking notes while making a recording you'll see 2-3 others just holding out the recorder and not taking any hard-copy notes.
     
  9. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    I guess that's so, come to think of it, at least in group settings like locker rooms. Is the ratio different at sit-down pressers? Or one on one? I always try to do both. Let the recorder get the transcript, while I make note of the stuff I think might be quote worthy.
     
  10. Dan Hickling

    Dan Hickling Member

    I'm very reliant on my Olympus (VN-960PC)....archive all my stuff on disk....when I interview, eye contact is very important, so any note taking suffers. Rarely bother with that anymore (I know that will horrify some, but this works for me..)...would NEVER go back to micro cassette....
     
  11. Just had my recorder erase three interviews for a prep baseball preview. Damn technology!!

    Edit: I was the one to actually erase it, but I somehow got it in my mind that I was erasing a different folder. I think the little machine likes to play games with me.
     
  12. HeinekenMan

    HeinekenMan Active Member

    I think I'll get a USB-capable digital recorder. That should help a lot.

    As for taking notes, I'm not going to pretend that I will. I know that I should, but it's such a terrific pain in the ass for me. I'm so slow that I often find myself missing the best stuff while I'm trying to remember what someone said four sentences ago. And that just blows any chance of my asking a good question out of the water.
     
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