However during its value-creating work the editor team faced a frustrating obstacle in their day-to-day operations. But who expected that an AI transcription tool would be the solution.
The challenge: transcribing an interview could take a full workday
Typing out an interview could consume an entire workday for a journalist. To quote the interviewee accurately, recordings had to be paused every 10–15 seconds, details replayed, and the spoken words manually typed out.
This task was not only prone to human error but was extremely time-consuming and monotonous.
“When an interview was long, many journalists would already worry in advance about how they would manage the transcription and how much time and energy it would take.”
–WMN online magazine
The real work with the text only began after this.
In the editorial office, the need soon risen to hand off this task to someone—or something—that could help journalists. Ten years ago, few could have predicted that an AI-based transcription tool would provide the answer.
The solution: AI transcription in minutes with Alrite
Alrite is a speech-to-text application that takes over exactly those tasks that previously consumed enormous amounts of time and energy in newsrooms. Within seconds, recordings are transformed into searchable, editable transcripts, while the application automatically identifies speakers and adds timestamps to paragraphs—the text can also be easily exported along with these features.
Additional built-in AI features support daily work, such as automatic translation, summary and keyword generation, generating chapters, and smart corrections. Available on both web and mobile platforms, Alrite is also frequently used for video captioning: subtitle timing, structure, and appearance can be fully customized to the user’s needs.
Why Alrite? Speed and outstanding accuracy in Hungarian
WMN found Alrite’s Hungarian transcription particularly effective: the transcripts required minimal correction, allowing content to be published quickly. Thanks to continuous improvements, the application has become not only more accurate but increasingly user-friendly.
How Alrite became a real help in journalists’ daily work?
Primarily, it saved significant time. Automatic AI transcription of recordings was completed in minutes, and reviewing and correcting the text took only a fraction of the previous time. A one-hour interview, which previously could take 6–7 hours to transcribe, now took only a fraction of that time with Alrite. Interview transcription thus became not only faster but more predictable.
Equally important was the reduction in mental strain.
“Transcription used to be such a monotonous, mechanical task that one of our journalists said they almost hated the interview by the time the transcript was finished”
–WMN noted.
The result: more time for meaningful journalism
Once the WMN team started using Alrite for transcription and captioning, tangible changes appeared in daily work.
The mental burden of transcription was significantly reduced, while the newsroom’s productivity noticeably increased. Journalists could focus more on parts of their work that truly required creativity, empathy, and human presence. As a result, more interviews, opinion pieces, and reports could be completed in the same amount of time.
The improvements were noticeable even with more difficult, noisy recordings, which required fewer corrections. One journalist specifically highlighted that while editing the transcript, it was particularly helpful that clicking on the text played the recording from the exact moment of the correction. There was no longer a need to manually search, rewind, and replay the audio repeatedly.
Overall, using Alrite AI transcription not only saved time for the WMN editorial team but also restored the energy journalists could devote to the stories themselves.
If you want to see how Alrite’s transcription and captioning application can support your work, you can try it for free via the link below!
If you’d like to learn more about Alrite, discover what more an AI-powered transcription and captioning tool can offer you.
