Professions · Journalists
Meeting notes for journalists.
The quote that makes the piece usually arrives when your pen is down and the source has stopped performing.
A forty-minute interview is roughly three hours of transcription if you do it yourself, and deadline rarely allows for that. GetNotes takes the recording from your phone or your dictaphone file and returns a speaker-labelled transcript you can search for the exact phrase you half-remember. That is the difference between quoting someone accurately and paraphrasing them defensively, and it is also the difference between filing at four and filing at nine.
Press conferences and doorsteps are messier: several voices, questions shouted from the back, and a minister answering a different question from the one asked. Diarisation keeps the questioner and the respondent apart, so you can lift an exchange as an exchange. Because GetNotes handles 90+ languages and mid-sentence code-switching, an interview that runs half in English and half in Hindi or Urdu still comes back as one coherent transcript.
For accountability reporting the archive matters as much as the story. Every recording, transcript and set of notes stays in private storage tied to your account, so six months later, when a spokesperson denies having said it, you can find the sentence rather than the general impression. Nothing is posted anywhere, nothing joins a call, and you can delete a recording and its transcript permanently once a story is out and the source no longer wants it held.
Where it earns its keep
The best line arrives on the way to the door
The formal interview ends, the notebook closes, and the source relaxes and says the thing you actually needed. If the recording is still running and they know it is, that line is on the record with a timestamp, not a half-memory you cannot in good conscience print.
A press conference with six questions and one non-answer
You need the exact wording of the question and the exact wording of the swerve, side by side. Speaker labels separate the room from the podium, so you can reproduce the exchange faithfully instead of summarising it and inviting a complaint.
An interview that switches language mid-sentence
A community leader explains policy in English and the story of what happened to their family in Punjabi, often inside the same sentence. GetNotes transcribes both without you having to split the file or brief a translator before you even know which parts you need.
How GetNotes works
- Record or upload. Hit record on your phone or laptop in the room — or drop in an audio file you already have. No bot joins anything.
- It writes it down. Every word transcribed, every speaker labelled, in 90+ languages including ones that switch mid-sentence.
- Share the minutes.Summary, decisions, and action items with owners — ready before everyone's back at their desk.
Questions, answered
Can I upload recordings from a dictaphone or an existing file?
Yes. Uploading is a core workflow rather than an afterthought — GetNotes accepts MP3, M4A, WAV, WebM and MP4, so field recorder files, voice memos and video interviews all work. That matters when the interview happened somewhere with no signal and you are only back at a desk hours later.
How well does it handle two people talking over each other?
GetNotes labels speakers automatically, which holds up well in a sit-down interview and less perfectly in a shouted doorstep. Treat a chaotic scrum as a draft to verify. For anything you intend to quote, listen back to the passage against the transcript — that is standard practice with any transcription tool.
Do I need to tell an interviewee I am recording?
Yes, and say it on the recording itself. Recording law varies by country and by US state, and several states require all parties to consent. Announcing it also protects the interview: a source who knows they are on tape and continues is far harder to argue with later. GetNotes records openly, with no bot joining anything.
Can I search back through old interviews?
Every meeting stays in your account with its full transcript, so you can find a phrase from an interview months later rather than trawling audio. Storage is private and tied to your account under row-level security, and you can delete any recording and its transcript permanently whenever you want.
Other professions
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