Coming soon to journalism: Matt Thompson sees the “Speakularity” and universal instant transcription

Neiman Journalism Lab, Dec. 15, 2010.

At some point in the near future, automatic speech transcription will become fast, free, and decent. And this moment — let’s call it the Speakularity — will be a watershed moment for journalism.

So much of the raw material of journalism consists of verbal exchanges — phone conversations, press conferences, meetings. One of journalism’s most significant production challenges, even for those who don’t work at a radio company, is translating these verbal exchanges into text to weave scripts and stories out of them.

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