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New open source tool to help reporters rethink quotes | Media news

Quotes are often the most interesting part of a story. They can help the audience relate or identify more with the topic and strengthen the reporting, but quoting a source in text often doesn't do justice to the impact their words could have in audio or video form. This is why The Times is testing quickQuote, a tool that uses videos and automatic transcription to make quotes easier to find and use in articles. "The initial problem was finding a way to make it easier and more interesting to work with video in the newsroom," said Pietro Passarelli, former newsroom developer intern at The Times, who developed quickQuote. Earlier this year, The Times also experimented with audio quotes, using the format in its multimedia coverage of the 7/7 bombings anniversary. It allowed the user to link an audio file to its corresponding text quote, but cutting the audio and finding the quote beforehand had to be manually done by the user, which "in a 20 minute video with no transcription took an enormous amount of time". QuickQuote, which was open-sourced last week, requires users to upload their video footage and then provides an automated transcription using natural language processing.After the transcription is generated, the user can click anywhere in the text to see and hear the corresponding video and audio, highlighting their desired quote with their mouse. Source: New open source tool to help reporters rethink quotes | Media news