Before an AI agent turns an interview into an article, check the transcript against the recording. A fluent sentence can contain the wrong amount, a missing “not” or a claim assigned to the wrong speaker. Those errors can survive every later editing pass because the text itself looks ordinary.
Use the transcript checks below for research, publishing and content production. Select them for the passage you intend to use, including what remains unclear or absent from its recording.
- 01Replay consequential passages.Check quotations, names, numbers and conditions before they become published claims.
- 02Separate speakers from identities.A consistent speaker label does not establish a person’s name.
- 03Preserve uncertainty.Mark unclear or missing material instead of filling it from a plausible story.
- 04Say which output you are producing.Verbatim, cleaned or summary are different deliverables; an agent that names its output stops a paraphrase acquiring quotation marks.
01 — ReferenceCheck four layers of evidence
Words cover what was said; speakers cover who said it; timing covers where it appears; context covers what text alone may omit. A check can be not applicable: audio-only material has no visual track to inspect. An unavailable recording is unverified, not a clean result.
| Review area | Evidence to inspect | Editorial consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Words: Names and specialist terms | Replay the phrase with its surrounding sentence | Correct from audible evidence or a verified glossary; preserve uncertainty otherwise. |
| Words: Numbers and units | Check each consequential quantity against the audio | Do not silently turn an unclear amount into a precise price. |
| Words: Negation | Replay statements containing no, not or exceptions | A missing negation can reverse the speaker’s meaning. |
| Words: Spoken versus translated | Identify the language and transcription task | Label a translation as a translation; keep source wording when needed. |
| Speakers: Turn boundaries | Compare speaker changes with the recording | A sentence crossing a turn boundary may belong to two people. |
| Speakers: Named identity | Check an explicit introduction or trusted recording context | Use an anonymous label when identity is not established. |
| Speakers: Overlapping voices | Replay simultaneous speech | Preserve overlap or an unclear span rather than inventing a clean dialogue. |
| Speakers: Quoted speech | Check whether the speaker is quoting someone else | Do not attribute a quoted position to the person reading it aloud. |
| Timing: Missing opening or ending | Compare transcript coverage with the full recording | Disclose clipping rather than implying the transcript covers the whole source. |
| Timing: Timestamp alignment | Jump to selected anchors in the source | Make navigation land near the represented speech; record any offset. |
| Timing: Repeated segment | Compare repetition to the corresponding audio | Remove decoding repetition only when the recording does not contain it. |
| Timing: Silence rendered as speech | Listen to the interval supporting suspicious text | Delete unsupported words and retain an uncertainty note where appropriate. |
| Context: Meaningful non-speech sound | Check laughter, alarms or other relevant audio cues | Include cues that change interpretation without inventing emotions. |
| Context: Visual-only information | Inspect the video if a descriptive transcript is required | Describe relevant visible information separately from spoken words. |
| Context: Editorial cleanup | Compare the edited transcript to the source version | Label summaries and clarifications; avoid passing paraphrase off as verbatim speech. |
| Context: Unclear passage | Retain a time anchor and the unresolved span | Mark uncertainty instead of completing the thought from context. |
02 — The evidenceWhat the primary guidance supports
W3C’s transcript guidance discusses speaker identification and the visual information a descriptive transcript may need. It also distinguishes clearly marked additions from the original audio and treats timestamps as an optional aid. These are useful editorial boundaries, not a universal transcript layout.
The Whisper model card warns that output can include text absent from the audio and that performance varies across languages and accents. This is a limitation documented for that model family. It does not provide a present-day error rate for every transcription system.
03 — Unclear audioMake an unclear passage recoverable
For an illustrative interview, suppose an amount sounds like either fifteen or fifty. The surrounding conversation might make one more plausible, but plausibility is not audio evidence. Preserve a time anchor and mark the amount unclear. If the amount matters to the article, obtain clarification or omit the unsupported precision.
Keep the original transcript, the reviewed version and the recording identifier connected. That lets an editor return to the exact passage after a correction. A timestamp should locate evidence, not merely make the document look technical.
Speaker labels need the same discipline. “Speaker 2” can remain useful when a name is unknown. Do not attach a known executive’s name simply because the statement sounds like something that person might say. The research citation reference applies the same principle to written attribution.
04 — QuotationKeep quotation, cleanup and summary distinct
A verbatim passage aims to preserve the spoken wording. A cleaned transcript may remove fillers under an agreed editorial policy. A summary rewrites the material around its meaning. An agent should state which output it is producing so a later editor does not put quotation marks around a paraphrase.
For a video with slides, decide whether the deliverable needs the visible material as well as the speech. If a speaker says “this figure,” the audio may not identify the number. Describe the relevant visual information separately and retain its source location.
Translated transcripts add another transformation. Preserve the original-language passage when a quotation or commercial promise depends on precise wording. Our translation quality guide covers checking meaning-bearing details through that change.
05 — ReleaseReview the claims the transcript will support
Review depth should follow the intended use. For search within a recording, rough text with visible uncertainty may be useful. For a published quotation, replay the complete passage and enough surrounding material to establish its context. Do not claim that a small spot check validates an entire recording.
A handoff should say which intervals were checked and which were not. If the recording cannot be recovered, the transcript may still support navigation or a tentative lead, but the missing evidence must remain visible to the next editor.
Keep the transcript readable as well as accurate. The accessibility verification article explains why visual polish alone is an incomplete review of a content artifact.
Original editorial classification informed by inspected primary sources.
- What was collected
- 16 transcript checks across 4 evidence layers. One row per check or response case; multiple rows can apply to the same artifact or task.
- As-of date
- Sources inspected and classification assembled September 7, 2026. The assigned publication date is September 5; this is not a claim of collection on that date.
- Sources and evidence
- W3C supplies transcript presentation and attribution guidance; Whisper’s model card documents model-specific limitations. The review checks are editorial analysis, not a transcription experiment.
- Exclusions and gaps
- No vendor census, model ranking, live experiment or prevalence estimate. UNVERIFIED means the required evidence was not inspected. Not applicable means the property is outside the agreed task.
- Limitations and updates
- A spot check establishes only the reviewed passage. Revisit the reference when source guidance changes.
- Refresh
- Review when the source standards or architecture change.
06 — The failure caseFour transcripts that read well and were wrong
The lede’s point is that a fluent sentence hides its errors. The illustrative transcripts below are each fluent and each wrong in a way one layer of the table would have caught. They are patterns, not reports of a particular recording.
The plausible number
An amount sounds like fifteen or fifty. The surrounding conversation makes fifty more plausible, so the transcript says fifty and the article repeats it. Plausibility is not audio evidence; the passage needed a time anchor and an unclear mark.
The named voice
Speaker 2 says something the company’s chief executive might say, and the transcript attaches the executive’s name. A consistent label never established an identity; an anonymous label was the honest state until an introduction or verified context supplied the name.
The paraphrase in quotes
A cleaned transcript removes fillers and tidies a sentence under an editorial policy, and the article puts quotation marks around the tidied version. The agent never said which output it was producing, so the editor treated cleanup as verbatim.
The spot check as validation
Three minutes of a ninety-minute recording are replayed and match. The handoff says the transcript was verified. A spot check establishes only the reviewed passage; the intervals that were not checked needed to be listed.
Each error survived because the text itself looked ordinary. The review record in the next section is the place where the layers are checked and the coverage is written down.
07 — The methodA transcript review record
The release section says a handoff should state which intervals were checked and which were not, and the rest of the reference fills in what else the record holds. The recording identifier and the version of the transcript reviewed, kept connected so an editor can return to the exact passage. The intervals replayed, by time anchor, and the consequential passages inside them: quotations, names, numbers and conditions. The spans marked unclear, each with its anchor and the candidates heard. The basis for every speaker label, whether an introduction, verified context or a label that remains anonymous. The output type, verbatim, cleaned under a stated policy, or summary. Any visual information described separately from the speech, with its source location. And the unresolved items: an unavailable recording, a passage that could not be settled, a translation whose original-language wording was kept.
An illustrative record for an interview reads: recording and transcript version identified; minutes four to nine and twenty-one to twenty-six replayed in full for the two quoted passages; one amount marked unclear at a stated anchor with fifteen and fifty as candidates, clarification requested; speakers one and two labelled from the recorded introductions, speaker three anonymous; output cleaned under the house policy, with the verbatim passages marked for the two quotations; a slide figure described separately from the audio; remaining intervals not reviewed.
The record makes the reference’s distinctions enforceable. The next editor can see that the quotation was replayed and the amount was not settled, can decide whether the unreviewed intervals matter for their use, and can return to the recording where the record points. It is also where the W3C guidance on clearly marked additions and the Whisper model card’s warning about text absent from the audio become a check rather than a caveat.
Agreement between two transcription systems helps locate uncertain passages; it does not verify them, because two systems can make the same plausible mistake. The recording is the evidence, and the record says which parts of it were heard.
08 — DecisionWhat to do next
Before the next article drawn from an interview, fill in the record for the passages the article depends on. Replay the two quotations and the one number, and the record will say so to whoever edits the piece after you.
Let the recording settle the consequential words.
Choose the passages your next output depends on, replay them and preserve unresolved spans. The transcript becomes useful evidence when its boundaries are visible.
For implementation support, explore our AI transformation services.