5 ms·
It's common because it would be too resource-intensive to provide transcripts for every quote. Articles from high-circulation newspapers often have five or mor
by aalam 5y ago
It's common because it would be too resource-intensive to provide transcripts for every quote.
Articles from high-circulation newspapers often have five or more interviewees per article. Quality newspapers are averse to publishing quotes without fact-checking them if possible (e.g. if a politician makes a false claim, you don't want to publish it without indicating it's false). To maintain the same principle, newspapers would need to fact-check the entire transcript, versus just the quoted part, for accuracy.
But if you want only a partial transcript, then you're essentially at the current state of affiars where you only quote the part you need, and paraphrase the rest. Journalistic ethical guidelines already require quotes to be in context for fairness. Reputable publications have an incentive to publish quotes in context (the interviewees, journalist watchdogs, and many readers would criticize that publication if they don't). So I don't see anything wrong with reading quotes and assuming they are published in good faith.
To mitigate ethical lapses, you can also read the same coverage from different sources (e.g. Wall Street Journal and New York Times) to get broader context about particularly important articles, and also subscribe to newsletters on reporting (e.g. the American Press Insitute newsletter, the Columbia Journalism Review).
- andy_ppp 5y agoI think if I’m on record I’m recording the conversation and the reporter should do the same. The highest standard would be to provide all on the record statements in recorded audio so we can confirm the reporter didn’t misremember to make the story juicier…
- aalam 5y agoThat's fair game to record the conversation too as an interviewee (most reporters wouldn't object). Most reporters by default also record the conversation directly (better for fact-checking and makes the job easier). Misremembering isn't typically a problem in practice; there are legitimate consequences for journalists, at least at respected publications, who misreport quotes (issued correction notice in the article, and the publication can get bad press from other outlets). The main downside with providing all the on the record statements in recorded audio, is that some statements by an interviewee can be false. If a scientist misstates a figure and corrects it later, listeners can latch on to the incorrect figure. Keeping it to print allows the reporting of the correct figure, or the printing of the quote with a note that it's a misstatement. You could also try to contextualize such statements in the transcript itself, but it then becomes more resource-intensive than the current system (publications are obligated to verify the entire transcript, versus selected parts).
- dredmorbius 5y agoTranscript or link was the request. There are plenty of cases in which transcripts exist (and they're auto-generated with high accuracy presently). The habit of not providing any direct access to the source where it is trivially available seems to be the one OP is specifically criticising, and I'd agree strongly.
- aalam 5y agoI have personal experience with transcription software (e.g. Otter.ai), and it's still not good enough. Even if you get 95% accuracy, which isn't a given if the audio is recorded outside with background noise, that's still 5 in 100 words for correction, more if there are technical terms. So you need someone to review it and clean it for accuracy. It's not trivially easy at all to provide all the source materials for every interview because it's time consuming to clean and verify. For especially sensitive investigative reporting that isn't breaking news, and where there's more time to report, news outlets (e.g. CBC News) already publish recordings and full email transcripts. I would also argue that it's the norm for journalists from respectable outlets (usually the ones with paid subscriptions) to put quotes in proper context. It's an ethical principle of the field. When they don't, the current system works when the interviewee, readership, and press watchdogs call out the unethical reporting.
- dredmorbius 5y agoThe purpose is to definitively source the citation, as a protection against journalists Making Shit Up and as a courtesy to others wishing to independently verify the accuracy and context. If there's an observed inaccuracy of the transcription, then note that fact. But source the goddamned quote.