The paperless journalist
I've written a couple of pieces about being a paperless journalist on my site:
The paperless journalist: dealing with my work portfolio
and
Paperless journalist: Notebooks
I'm doing OK with reducing most of the paper in my home office, but I'm stumped about dealing with the paper notebooks. How are others handling the problem?
The paperless journalist: dealing with my work portfolio
and
Paperless journalist: Notebooks
I'm doing OK with reducing most of the paper in my home office, but I'm stumped about dealing with the paper notebooks. How are others handling the problem?
Tags: notebook, paper, paperless
Views: 118
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Bill Bennett on -
Both. I can't see a way around conventional paper notebooks for note-taking in the near future. I could fill boxes with the ones I've already filled with scribbles.
I made a conscious decision to keep my notebooks for just two to three years - even though I was previously advised to keep them for seven. I can't find any reference to the statue of limitations on defamation actions in Australia and New Zealand (where I live), but the general rule in the US is two or three years (it varies from state to state).
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Balcerak on -
Have you tried Evernote to store the notes (and recycle the old ones)? And why not a voice recorder for interviews?
-
Permalink Reply by Bill Bennett on
-
Hi Paul,
I've tried Evernote - and use Microsoft OneNote which is similar in some respects. They're good products, but not really practical tools for dealing with the sheer volume of paper notes I make.
I guess I add an entire reporter's notebook to my collection each week. Scanning that lot in to my PC would take hours and I'm not sure there would be much benefit. As the story at my site says, my handwriting is barely readable on paper, when scanned into the computer it is indecipherable.
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Balcerak on
-
Fair enough. So then what about voice notes?
-
Permalink Reply by Bill Bennett on
-
I don't usually record interviews - find it inefficient.
Maybe I should learn to love the voice recorder. I think I would if speech recognition was good enough to automatically churn out a transcript.
Funny, I was a press conference in 1981 where a company showed off speech recognition hardware and said "within two years it'll be able to turn a conversation into written notes". Almost 30 years later we're still waiting.
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Balcerak on
-
Wish I had something here to help you with, but my experiences with voice recognition (which are to say, Google Voice and Dragon Dictation) have been pretty much the same.
I'll post back here if I find anything good, though.
-
Permalink Reply by Steve Saldivar on -
Sounds like a lofty goal. I gotta say, in general, I'm not sure why most people aren't typing in their notes (TextEdit, Word, Evernote, etc.)
"I'm not sure there would be much benefit."
I'm not sure about this. I think the fact that you can SEARCH for keywords would be benefit enough. Imagine trying to find a certain quote in a box full of old reporter's notebooks?
-
Permalink Reply by Bill Bennett on
-
"I'm not sure why most people aren't typing in their notes "
Because it isn't always practical when you're reporting on the run and it can be a distraction.
Last week I was at a, by New Zealand standards, large press conference where a number of journos were sitting on chairs tapping away on laptop computers. They seemed more focused on keeping their computers stable, plugging things in and the process of tapping than on the event itself and asking questions.
Then when the formal stuff was over, those of us with paper notebooks managed to run up and grab individuals for quotes while the laptop users were still struggling with their gear. You can't chase someone down a corridor with laptop cables trailing everywhere.
At another recent event, a journo in front of me spent a large part of the press conference scanning Gmail and other web pages - clearly incoming emails from her office were more important than the story.
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Balcerak on
-
Let's not lose the discussion—whatever works for each person is cool, whether that's a laptop or an Etch-a-Sketch.
I think (?) what Steve was saying was Why don't you start typing out your notes when you have free time?, though I think you said something earlier about having a prohibitively large amount of notes that would have to be transcribed.
The benefit of Evernote is that a search crawls text in notes, not just titles of notes, which makes referencing way more efficient than if you were to, say, dig through a "box full of old reporter's notebooks." -
-
Permalink Reply by Bill Bennett on
-
@Paul
Yes, I agree whatever works for others is fine.
Transcription is out partly because of the amount of work concerned, but also transcribed notes carry less legal weight in defamation cases. At least, that was true in the past. Have things changed in recent years?
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Balcerak on
-
Didn't know that. I always thought notes were notes and all held the same legal standing (graduated in '07 and that was the consensus, but I admittedly don't have anything specific to point to).
-
Permalink Reply by Bill Bennett on
-
I go back 30-odd years and have worked in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. I know years ago original notebooks carried far more weight than transcribed notes - but all my journalism law books (I have versions for each country) are more like collectors items than records of current practice.
Which is a good reminder and to go out and find a more up-to-date edition and then read it.
© 2013 Created by Ryan Sholin.
Powered by
