In early February, Jill Abramson told The Cut that in her decades-long career as a journalist, she had never recorded an interview. "I take notes very fast," she said in a dull question and answer, which drew online criticism of Abramson's admission as evidence of recklessness. The next day, she was accused of plagiarizing passages from her new book "The Merchant of Truth" about the media industry, which only added to the impression that the former executive editor of the "New York Times" played it lightly.

Putting aside the issue of plagiarism, the truth is that, depending on the circumstances, many journalists will not record their interviews. This is not to say that this is the norm, but interviewing practices vary, mainly because journalism, unlike law or medicine, is an intuitive profession that does not require formal training (for better or worse).

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How reporters commemorate their interviews seems to be divided into generations in many ways. Older reporters rely more on their notebooks, while younger reporters cling to their recording equipment, which was once bulky and somewhat It was intimidating, but it was more widely used around the end of the 20th century with the advent of digital technology. But it also depends on the person. For example, Gay Talese strongly opposes tape recorders-and regards their widespread use as the death knell of literary reportage-and E. Jean Carroll prefers to use her smartphone to videotape her interview subjects so that she can capture faces Emoji, which usually helps as psychology says.

The following are the testimonials from 18 reporters. Most of these recommendations come from email; some are excerpts from telephone interviews, not recorded. All content has been edited for length and clarity.

Great editor, re-code; special opinion writer, New York Times

I now take notes and records, unless it is very brief. It is safer and better for everyone to commemorate it with audio.

National Political Correspondent, Washington Post

I now have a Sony tape recorder and an iPhone. If I sit down for an interview and record it, I usually record at the same time, especially because if someone has an iPhone, they will know the spam caller who promised you a free holiday You can interfere at any time.

Feature writer, Los Angeles Times

When Jill started to rain for her note-taking concept, I thought to myself: "What's the problem with this?"

I almost never record interviews. I think this is a crutch that too many reporters rely on. It forbids them to really listen to what this person is saying because they think all this will be recorded on tape, so why pay 100% attention? I also don't believe in technology, and I always worry that the interviews I recorded will disappear in some way.

I take notes with Jill-I am a very fast note taker. In my 17 years as a journalist, no one has ever complained that I quoted them incorrectly.

When I am conducting an investigation and a source says something very bad, I will do the same thing Abramson described, and then wait a few shots and write it down, trying to keep the person from being scared . This is actually one of the reasons why I use a pocket recorder (sometimes my phone is also used as a backup)-I don't want to telegraph what I think is useful and what I am not interested in. I found these sources. When I write in my notebook, I really pay attention, and sometimes I write things down just to try to manage people’s views on the progress of the interview. Sometimes my notebook is more like a prop, because I know everything is in the record and I can retrieve the transcript later.

I usually don’t record people who talk to me in the background, or people who give me tips when they understand that their names will not be used, because I find that tape recorders can really scare nervous sources. However, I will never quote the words of these people, so I do not need accurate transcripts of their words.

When I do more hanging-out style reports, I usually record more casually and just follow one person through their day. But last year I worked with magazine fact checkers for the first time and found it really helpful to be able to record them.

Some people deny that they have spoken to me or that they have said what they said. If I cannot provide the recording to the fact checker, we may have to cut out the material. So now I try to record as much as possible, unless there is a good reason not to do so.

National Political Correspondent, New York Times

I use an application called Automatic Call Recorder to record almost all calls, which is also attached to the transcription service. Even when I am recording, I often take notes so that I know which parts of the tape to go back to, or if I work before the deadline, this is a way to move forward quickly. After about five minutes, the app will send me a rough transcription of the phone call.

If I am face to face, I will use my phone as a voice recorder and usually let the other person know that it is turned on. I also write notes and important moments by hand. I don’t use a tape recorder to record things about people on the street, but in these cases, I almost always review the quotes of this person with them because they usually lack media literacy and I don’t want to surprise a person.

Investigative reporter, New Orleans advocate

I almost always tend to record any conversations I have while reporting, but in some cases I don't do this, either because it is impossible or undesirable.

On Capitol Hill, I almost never see reporters carrying pens and pads, and sticking telephones or tape recorders directly on the faces of politicians is completely predictable and acceptable. But in other cases this is not always the case.

I always try to record politicians and other officials and review their quotes by transcribing tapes. That's because these sources seem to me the most likely to challenge the quotation — and because the speakers often sit in these interviews and record their finals.

But in some cases, I may not want to record. During my work as a crime reporter, I would contact bystanders, witnesses, or relatives at the crime scene. The next day I will visit their sad family in their home. I will try to chat with police officers whose department policy prohibits talking to me. Pulling out the tape recorder right away and putting it on their face can sometimes be intimidating, adding a certain degree of tension to the conversation or turning off voices that may be enlightening, while simple pens and pads are not.

I can write quickly and am confident in my ability to accurately summarize conversations in written notes. I believe that most journalists can do this with some practice. If I don’t record, I’ll try to listen to shorter quotes—I’m sure I can jot down these quotes quickly and accurately—otherwise, repeat what someone said in the interview. If I am not fully confident in the accuracy of the citation, I will summarize it and will not put quotation marks around it.

Then in some cases it cannot actually be recorded. Federal and Louisiana courts prohibit recording, and even in a few cases, the cost of obtaining litigation records is often prohibitive. In particular, federal courts generally prohibit the use of electronic devices inside, which means that you must lock the tape recorder in the car, and usually rely on pens and pads, even when interviewing lawyers, witnesses, and relatives in the hallway. . If reporters are not used to relying on notes without recording—and don’t take the time to develop these skills—how can they cover trials and court proceedings?

Film critic, New York observer; author, do you sleep naked?

For a while, early in my career, I really had a photographic memory. I didn't need anything but notes. I still have some shorthand notebooks full of notes from interesting people I interviewed, including the subject of long magazine articles. But as my age grew and my memory became less and less reliable, I started to use a tape recorder. They are clumsy, inconvenient, and very annoying. They have to be procrastinated to listen for hours, and at the most critical moment, I have never had a tape.

In addition, there are also cases where the interviewee opposes the use of them. The grumpy Jerry Lewis took out his own tape recorder and recorded me, and I recorded him. For my now-famous Mr. Vogue article about Ava Gardner, Tom Wolfe reprinted his book New News. She completely prohibited me from using the tape recorder, so I had to keep running to the bathroom to record her best The harsh quotation prompted her to ask: "What's the matter, baby? Is there a problem with the bladder?" But in retrospect, I am grateful for the strategy of recording interviews, because now I have an irreplaceable dialogue with the people I cherish. How fun it is to relive oral ping-pong with Audrey Hepburn, Tennessee Williams and Bob Hope.

Basically, my process is to offload all memory work to a device, usually my iPhone, and I use my notebook to manually make backup notes.

I will not delete anything that I don't need. For larger projects, I create a specific Google Drive folder that contains recordings, pictures, and drafts. Never delete, man.

I try to record as much as I can. If I can’t, I usually don’t quote others directly unless I confirm the exact wording in the interview. The only exception is when I am collecting background information, and that is because I know I will conduct follow-up interviews with anything I want to use and reconfirm at that time.

I don't have a fixed time. At this point, they are all digital, and in the cloud, I really don't have any compelling reason to delete them.

I think it is the responsibility of reporters to be as accurate as possible. A reasonable person knows that memory is wrong, and notes that are not fully transcribed may be misunderstood inadvertently in the future. If you are trying to do your job well, why take the risk? I think it makes sense to say that you can't always record; but in principle you never record because you think you don't need to be just arrogant.  

Founder and Editor of The New York Sun

I recorded very little. There may be more than a dozen times in my career, which can be traced back to 1962. I take notes very slowly, and only jot down things I am certain. I only added the actual material in the quotation marks. I found that the screening process—just putting phrases or short sentences in quotation marks, and I'm sure I was right—makes me really wait for the essence.

Contributor, HuffPost and New York

I always record audio interviews. Without exception.

Only if the subject permits, I will record the interview in the background or in the non-recording. Some say yes, some say no.

But recorded interviews are always recorded. Obviously they either saw me turn on the recorder, or I told them I wanted to record.

The recording will never be deleted. once!

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Special writer, "The New Yorker"

I always record my interviews, and I really can't think of a reason not to do this-ideally, two digital recorders with new batteries in my pocket. I might jot down things about location, someone’s appearance, weather, and air feeling in my notebook; I might find excuses to go to the bathroom, and then desperately flipped out two paragraphs on my phone. But these are impressions, details, ideas-not quotes. The memory is so deep and easy to make mistakes. I know some people talk about journalists avoiding tape recorders in order to make the subject "comfortable"-I'm not sure that is the reporter's job, to be precise, but anyway, I find crazy graffiti notes more distracting and quiet than digital tape recorders. Sit down on the table. In addition, in my experience, part of being a good journalist is to train myself to listen attentively and carefully—to listen more fully than usual—and I can’t try to do the hard work of listening in depth at the same time. Write a bunch of things.  

If it’s not a traditional interview situation—for example, if I spend a lot of time on a topic and some conversation happens between formal sittings—I will still try to keep a record on me, and whenever someone When I start to say something interesting, I will take it out. This may be a bit harsh for a subject, but anyway, they know what I am doing there. I can understand that there may be situations where you can’t access or use your recorder at all for some reason. If that happens, okay, okay, I’ll take notes-but for me, it’s a exception. The thought that I might accidentally distort someone's language makes me nervous. I can deduce the meaning from the interview—to conclude that the subject may disagree—but being misquoted can feel violent and scary.

I also found that the audio file of the interview is really useful in the future, when I sit down and write-all these small details are hard to notice now, because your adrenaline is losing, you are locked, you're paying attention again The arc of conversation. The way someone pronounces it, the timbre of their voice, pauses, tension, lightness, darkness, etc.-these things are also the essence of the mill and are easy to miss. In addition, if I don't have to do the heavy work of transcribing my interviews, I don't think I will learn so much from my mistakes. As a journalist, I can't think of a better way to improve myself, instead of having to listen to myself in communication, or ask for follow-up on mistakes, or let some important things pass. Really useful training!

A few shoe boxes filled with mini cassette tapes were stuffed under my bed. For digital recordings, I usually back them up to the hard drive and forget them. Admittedly, I'm not good at organizing or archiving digital material, but I haven't deliberately deleted the interview audio; I think I thought,'You never know. But interviews are only a small part of my job-I can fully understand a reporter who cleans the house frequently.

Chief Foreign Correspondent, San Francisco Chronicle

I usually record my interviews, but I don't always listen to the whole story. I will take notes by typing on the laptop or jot down things in the notebook. If I want to cite a specific quote from someone, I will refer to the timestamp on the recording. I will go back to listen to the clip later, just to make sure that I quote this person accurately. But for numbers, numbers, general information, etc., I usually do not review the entire recording, but refer to my notes. I don't have a system that can record the time I keep recording. Some of my content a few years ago is still stored on iTunes. When I get a new iPhone, the others will be deleted.

Former reporter and columnist of The New York Times

If I remember correctly, Truman Capote said that he did not take notes for the interview with his classic "Cold Blood"-and of course there was no recording. I never understand or even believe it. I can hardly believe that someone can memorize a lot of conversation fragments, no matter how smart he or she is.

So, indeed, I always use notepads and pens. However, in general, I also don't like to use recording equipment. This is of course not always necessary, especially if you are not going to quote someone verbatim. For some interviewees, the existence of tape recorders can be frustrating, even though today’s devices are smaller than in the past and therefore less intrusive. In most cases, recording routine interviews can be painful. Then you have to replay the conversation, which is time consuming and especially unhelpful if you get it right before the deadline.

There are exceptions. When I know that I will quote someone, I always record the conversation, just like I did in the personality profile etc. I have conducted quite a few interviews with the president, prime minister and other senior officials in this country and as a foreign reporter. In these situations, I almost always use a tape recorder. The last thing any reporter wants to do is to misquote a government leader — or, more likely, to miss a nuance — may lead to unfortunate consequences. There are also elements of self-protection. You don’t want officials who are dissatisfied with an article to claim that they were misquoted when in fact they did not.

Some I erased quickly, and some I kept, even though the reasons I did this were not always logical. I consciously kept some interviews that I conducted with people who I wrote obituaries-they are still alive. But generally speaking, the interviews I recorded didn't have a pattern on how long it lasted.

I admit that sometimes the quotes I jot down in my notebook do not exactly match the ones on the tape. It's not that I misunderstood the nature of what this person said—not at all. I am not talking about the meaning of distortion. But sometimes when I check the tape, I find that the content in my notebook does not match the words. Maybe the person said "no" and I wrote "no"-simple mistakes did not change the basic accuracy.

This is an argument against the assumption that even the fastest and most diligent note taker will record everything on paper with absolute precision. It seems impossible to me. This has always been the case, and frankly, I think that as I get older and my memory wears a bit on the edges, it is more unlikely than ever.

I have a storage space in Warwick in [New York]. Half of the storage space is filled with old tapes, one after another. It's incredible-I live on my tape recorder. Now, my most recent story is called "Miss Let’s Wild Journey", and now, I only make videos. I find that people like to perform in front of the camera-love it! ...For me, this is the Roger Ayres School of Journalism. The way you speak is more important than the content of the speech.

Previous report, Wall Street Journal; author, news for me: looking for and writing colorful special stories

In the first 30 years of my career, I rarely used cassette recorders. My interviews are usually face-to-face, especially in overseas for 20 years, often with an interpreter. When the people you interview watch you take notes, they seem to give you a chance to follow their conversation. No recording is required.

When I returned to the United States in 1997, digital tape recorders became cheap and easy. I started using one to conduct long, complicated interviews, usually over the phone. These interviews are mainly informative and technical, involving lawyers, doctors, scientists, executives and elites. I'm not using them to find popular quotes, but to prepare myself to leave the office to meet my real subject and look for scenes and events. I transcribed these recordings and found that they are very valuable for solving complex issues such as immigration law. Without these transcripts, I promise that I will make more mistakes than I did.

Magazine reporter; author of The Golden Ring

I record everything and I also take notes.

Recording is very important to me, not only for accuracy, but also to give people the tone and flavor of the language. Because I interviewed many teenagers, I like to accurately grasp the wording and rhythm of their speeches, which is impossible with notes.

I also take notes to remember facts and feelings. Now that I have an iPhone camera, I also take pictures of my subjects (if they are okay) so that I can remember what they are wearing or what their home looks like.

I keep the iPhone recordings forever; you just need to store them on your computer. When I use cassette tapes, I have a large cassette tape. I have a small apartment and they take up a lot of space. So for those who are 10 or older, I just throw them away. Of course, I still have the transcript, but I'm really sorry that I threw the tape away. Some of them are Donald Trump (who knows?), Gwyneth Paltrow... they should even be used as a professional souvenir.

Literary journalist and author of many books, including "The Kingdom and Power"

I hate tape recorders. I have never owned it, and don't even know how to operate it. I have never owned a mobile phone. I don't want to talk to people on the phone. I want to see them up close, face to face, listen patiently and respectfully, and pay attention to their gestures and other signs that indicate how they feel and think. I often ask them, once I get to know them, "What are you thinking when you do something?" Surprisingly, they often present themselves in interesting and intimate ways. I will use these methods later. Explain my written account. I often paraphrase rather than quote directly, because people seldom speak in complete and clear sentences, and as a writer (yes, a good reporter must also be a good writer!) I believe I can be more honest and easier to read. When I tell the story in my own language instead of succumbing to the verbatim and often blunt language recorded on the tape recorder. …I worry that new technology has turned today’s young journalists into lazy professionals who spend too much time sitting behind their laptops and staring at their smartphones instead of going on the road and spending a lot of time facing all kinds of people in person. . The thoughts and stories of such people need to be told more than now. Journalists must be storytellers, skilled and digging researchers. Their ambitions should be comparable to the artistic goals of novelists and short story writers, while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and verifiability.

I often ask the same question at least two, three or four times. Why? Because I want to make sure I understand the full meaning of another person’s feelings and opinions. I wrote their words on the cardboard (short board), I cut the cardboard and put it in the breast pocket of my jacket. When I write something, I sometimes show it to the people I interview, and I say: "Look at this. This is what I just heard from you. Can't you be more clear? Can we go deeper here? "Then I may stop. If the person seems unwilling to continue speaking, I may say, "Look, I didn't mean to make things difficult. But the record you said is very important. And you may be more important than you think. Many, many people are interested in your point of view, and I am doing my best as a writer and reflector of your private world and how you represent it in the larger world around us."

The tape recorder-which became famous when I was a daily reporter for The Times in the late 1950s-has ruined the art of magazine writing. The tape recorder introduces Q&A interviews into modern magazine writing. result? The author forgets how to “listen” and ask the same questions repeatedly (like me), surrendering to the person who is the subject of the work—that is, the movie star, or other celebrity or politician, has taken over the article. What they said (not the author's "voice") has become the essence of the article. Today's writers lack status. When I started writing for magazines, this was not the case-with Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and others. Sadly, today's reporters are usually stenographers. Thanks, recorder!

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