Why journalists avoid cloud transcription
Most transcription apps upload the recording and process it on their servers. That is convenient, and for a press conference it does not matter. For a source who spoke on condition of anonymity it does: the full recording, with their voice, now sits with a third party, under that company’s retention rules and the laws of wherever its servers are.
Local transcription removes that copy. The speech model runs on your laptop, and the recording and transcript stay in the folder you choose. There is no account at a transcription service holding your interviews.
From interview to quotes
- Record. In person with your phone or recorder, or a call on your computer with “Record from App”. Drag phone recordings onto Scrieb; they are dated by when they were recorded.
- Transcribe locally. Choose “Interview” when importing. Speaker identification separates you from the interviewee, and you rename speakers once.
- Read the Interview summary. Questions and answers by topic, and the key quotes word for word with who said them.
- Check against the audio. Search the transcript, find the passage and play that part of the recording. Fix names and numbers in the Document tab.
- Export to Word, PDF, text or Markdown, or ask the chat across all interviews for one story.
What reporters use it for
Source interviews
Sensitive conversations transcribed without a copy at any service. Delete the recording in Scrieb when you no longer need it.
Phone and video interviews
Record Zoom, Teams, Meet or WhatsApp desktop calls on your computer. No bot appears in the call.
Long-form and investigations
Dozens of interviews in one folder. Search inside every transcript, or ask the chat what each person said about a topic.
Foreign-language reporting
Over 90 languages, including interviews that switch language. Summaries are written in the language of the recording.
Local app or cloud service
| Local app (Scrieb) | Cloud transcription service | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the interview goes | Stays on your laptop | Uploaded to the vendor’s servers |
| Who else holds a copy | Nobody | The vendor, under its retention policy |
| Works without internet | ✓ after setup | ✗ |
| Speaker labels | ✓ | Usually |
| Quotes with who said them | ✓ in the Interview summary | Varies |
| Cost | Free 1 h a day; Pro subscription, no minute limits | Usually per minute or monthly minute caps |
What leaves your computer: only account data (email address, a device ID and a usage counter) and update checks. Subscribers can turn on offline mode, which stops even those until you click. Details: Data protection & security.
Pricing
Free plan: 1 hour of recording a day, with speaker labels and summaries. Pro: no minute limits, one licence for Mac and Windows.
Try it on your own recordings
Questions journalists ask
- Is there transcription software for journalists that does not upload interviews?
- Yes. Scrieb transcribes interviews on your own Mac or Windows laptop. The recording is read from your disk and the transcript is written back to it; no transcription service or AI provider receives the audio or the text. After the one-time model download it works without internet.
- Why does it matter where an interview is transcribed?
- An interview uploaded to a cloud service sits on that company’s servers, under its retention rules and the laws of the country it operates in. For a confidential source that is one more place the recording can be requested or leaked from. Transcribing on your own computer keeps the recording where you already keep your notes.
- Can it pull out quotes?
- Yes. The Interview summary lists the questions and answers by topic and the key quotes word for word, with who said them. Check every quote against the audio before publishing; speech recognition can mishear names and numbers.
- Does it work for phone and video interviews?
- For calls on your computer (Zoom, Teams, Meet, WhatsApp desktop), use “Record from App”: it records the call audio and your microphone, with no bot joining. For calls on your phone, record them with the phone and import the file. Tell the other person you are recording where the law or your outlet requires it.
- Which languages does it transcribe?
- Over 90 languages, using Whisper. An interview that switches between two languages is handled too. You can also set the language for one recording when detection gets it wrong.
- Will it spell names correctly?
- Add names, places and terms to the custom vocabulary under Settings → Transcription and new transcripts spell them your way. Unusual names are still the most common error, so check them.
- How do I keep several stories apart?
- Put each story’s recordings in a folder. The AI chat can then answer from one folder, so “what did each person say about the contract?” is answered from that story’s interviews only.
- Is it free?
- The free plan includes 1 hour of recording a day, with speaker labels, summaries and all export formats. Pro removes the limit and covers Mac and Windows with one licence.