9/09/2019

TECH! -SAM DAILY TIMES- TOOLS?


PHONE as a work tool. Only a work tool. How do New York journalist use technology in their jobs and their personal lives?

Conor Dougherty, who covers Economics from San Francisco, discussed the tech he's using.

How so?

Don't get me wrong : I love wasting time. I just prefer to waste it on things like beer, skateboarding and video games [some of, my favorite weekend activities] instead of an argument with someone I've never met [and who probably isn't even who say they are] on Twitter.

I still use my phone too much, but I use less than I did before and naturally get bored all of it because I don't have an endless stream of feeds as you do with social media.

Even though news apps are updated constantly, there are really a handful of significant stories on any given day, so I have some semblance of completion after I've cycled through a few of them.

Plus, most reporters spend a lot of time on social media, and not that many read into lots of hyperlocal news. I get a lot of great story ideas just scanning various small papers and trying to put the pieces together and looking for emerging trends.

I once wrote a story about a single house in Berkeley, Calif, whose long and complicated story held various important lessons about how California dug itself into a horrific housing crisis.

The germ of that idea came from reading about a bunch of contentious City Council meetings. 

But reading is only part of your job.

Indeed, I also interview a lot of people and lately have developed an expensive addiction to transcription apps.

I've tried several, but the one I use the most is Rev. It costs about $1 per minute, more for rush orders. I find that I do better interviews when I don't have to stress out about writing quotes exactly right, but transcription takes forever.

This solves that. It's probably the most useful tech tool I've ever come across.

I can't say enough good things about transcription, with the only downside being cost.

Are you worried about privacy?

Not really. I use Rev only to transcribe on-the-record interviews. I turn off my recorder when people go-off the record.

The honor and serving of the latest operational research on Publishing, Reporting, Tech and Tools. continues.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Grace A Comment!