When breaking news can surface on social media within seconds, working quickly is critical for reporters who want to be part of the conversation.
Recordly, a WiSTEM startup, uses artificial intelligence to help reporters keep up with those breakneck speeds without sacrificing accuracy.
“We’ve built an interviewing tool that incorporates an instant transcription tool and several recording management features,” said founding partner Sintia Radu. “We wanted to make a tool that would let [reporters] spend more time on their stories.”
Soon to be launched for iOS and the Apple Watch, Recordly lets reporters record interviews on their phones, receiving transcriptions minutes after the interview is over. The transcripts, which are generated by IBM Watson, can be highlighted, edited and timestamped directly in the app.
Reporters can mark interesting parts of the interview in medias res, and those sections will be automatically highlighted when the transcript arrives. The app also has tools that let field reporters seamlessly submit quotes to their editors or share them on social media.
“We need to reach our audiences before the rumors and fake news spread,” said Radu. “It’s a very tough world for journalists nowadays, so we need to use technology as much as possible to stay competitive.”
Recordly hopes to help reporters with their non-breaking coverage as well. A recent industry study, discussed in an Associated Press report on augmented journalism, found that the average reporter spends six hours a week transcribing interviews, compared with three hours actually conducting the interviews.
Unwilling or unable to sacrifice that time, some reporters decide to forgo recordings altogether and instead rely entirely on notes. To Radu, that is potentially a cause for concern because nuances can get lost in the note-taking process.
Recordly was born out of an entrepreneurship competition at the University of Missouri for founders looking to address media challenges. The team won that competition and, along with it, a trip to San Francisco to meet with Apple executives to demo their work and receive feedback on it.
Radu said the response she and her co-founders have received from fellow reporters so far suggests that the company is meeting an urgent need in the industry.
“We were joking in the beginning that even if Recordly isn’t successful, we can still use it for our own notes,” she said, adding that her team has received a lot of positive feedback when presenting at journalism conferences.
Recordly graduated from 1871’s WiSTEM accelerator program earlier this year, and it expects to launch its product in the fall of 2017. Radu said the WiSTEM program has helped her and her co-founders expand their networks of potential clients, investors and advisors.
Based in Chicago and Columbia, Missouri, Recordly is currently funded by the Missouri Innovation Center.
Images via Recordly.
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