Over the past few years, we’ve been hearing about the growing importance of engaging and valuable video and audio content for our audiences. Meanwhile, the rise of AI has brought about new opportunities and challenges — from concerns about deepfakes and fact-checking to advances in turning written content into podcasts or creating sophisticated video.

However, there are other ways AI can empower publishers. In addition to meeting the growing demand for multi-media content, AI tools can streamline workflows and prevent journalists from being overwhelmed with extra work.

One simple, yet impactful solution? Transcription!

Transcription can play a vital role in streamlining and simplifying various tasks and processes, making a real impact for publishers and saving real time for newsrooms.

Optimise video and audio content for better SEO performance

Despite concerns about declining traffic from Google and social media, we still want to ensure our content is well indexed. This includes video content, which requires extra effort from the journalists responsible for it.

Creating SEO-optimised video or audio content is no easy task: It requires not only a relevant and attention-grabbing title but also a detailed description and, ideally, a full transcription. These elements are critical because they help search engines better understand the content, making it more likely to appear in search results and reach a wider audience.

For example, if a newsroom publishes several hundred pieces of video content each day, manually creating a meaningful description or transcript with key information for all of them would take so much time that most of the content would either not be described at all or would be ineffective from an SEO perspective.

Transcribe interviews in minutes, not hours

Another area where AI-generated transcriptions could make a big difference is interview content.

For journalists, transcribing interviews is often one of the most time-consuming parts of their workflow. Did you know manually transcribing 60 minutes of content can take anywhere from two to four hours of a journalist’s time, depending on the complexity, audio quality, and number of speakers?

The task requires intense focus and can easily drain time and energy that could be better spent writing, editing, or analysing the story itself. Plus, it’s tedious, repetitive work that few enjoy.

Additionally, getting quotes right is non-negotiable in journalism. With transcription, journalists can copy and paste quotes directly, ensuring accuracy and saving time. Instead of fiddling with timestamps and playback, they can focus on crafting compelling stories.

Also, if they need to verify some things within the interview or conference, transcriptions provide quick access, allowing journalists to verify facts without having to manually replay recordings, which can save hours during busy news cycles. If a press conference lasts an hour, a journalist can scan a transcript for key points in minutes instead of relistening to the audio.

Improve content accessibility

According to the World Health Organization, more than 430 million people worldwide have a significant hearing loss. Captions ensure people with hearing loss, or anyone who does not want to hear audio in certain situations, can still engage with the material.

For example, many people prefer to watch videos with captions while commuting or in public spaces where the sound may be disruptive. By incorporating these accessibility features, we not only make our content more inclusive but also expand its reach and usability for all audiences.

Ultimately, taking these extra steps benefits both our audience and our visibility online.

Incorporating AI transcriptions into media companies

There are many approaches to creating transcriptions, each with its own pros and cons.

You can use free solutions. Their advantage is, well, the price. However, they often come with limits and requirements, and they typically force journalists to juggle between different tools.

Paid tools offer more possibilities and have fewer limitations, but they can be costly and still require switching between tools.

There’s also an approach many media companies are adopting and one we also use at Ringier Axel Springer Polska. The transcription tool is integrated into our Ring Publishing content management system (CMS). This makes preparing transcriptions a natural and simple step in the editorial workflow.

Additionally, by collaborating with the development team, the editorial team can influence how this tool functions.

Transcriptions are an invaluable tool and should not be overlooked. They offer significant benefits to news publishers — from improving SEO performance, saving time, and making life easier for journalists to increasing content accessibility. On average, transcriptions save up to 75% of the time compared to manual methods, resulting in hundreds of hours saved monthly.

So why not give it a try?

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