Newsroom transcription, built for deadline
Drop in the interview or paste the link and get a speaker-labeled transcript back in minutes, plus the themes, the on-the-record quotes, and a Q&A breakdown your editor can read at a glance.
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How do you transcribe clips?
To transcribe newsroom audio, upload the interview, press conference, or meeting recording, or paste its link, and Pepys returns a speaker-labeled transcript in minutes, plus the key themes, verbatim on-the-record quotes, and a Q&A breakdown. It is pay-as-you-go with no subscription, and credits never expire.
Made for newsrooms
Every interview you record is a quote you still have to find. The story is somewhere in the audio, but between the deadline clock and an hour of tape, the reporting turns into scrubbing a timeline for the one line you half-remember. A newsroom needs the transcript fast, the speakers labeled correctly, and the on-the-record quotes verbatim, because a misattributed sentence is not a typo, it is a correction.
In practice the work is sourcing and verification under a clock: you check a contested figure against what the official actually said, pull the cleanest attributable line, and file before the desk closes. Good newsroom transcription does this with word-level timestamps, so when a quote is challenged you jump to that second in the recording instead of re-listening from the top, and a full-text search finds a name across a stack of council-meeting and press-conference recordings. Then export a DOCX into the CMS and SRT for the video desk.
On-the-record quote pulls
The verbatim, attributable lines surfaced and tied to the right speaker, so the quote in your story matches the tape exactly.
Searchable interview archive
Every interview becomes full-text searchable, so you jump straight to the line you half-remember instead of scrubbing the timeline.
Press conferences and council meetings
Long, multi-voice public recordings come back speaker-separated, so a two-hour hearing is readable in minutes.
Timestamped for the cut
Every line carries a timestamp, so the broadcast desk can pull the exact clip for air or social without re-listening.
Built in, not bolted on
The soundbites, the key claims, and a quick rundown
Every clipis analyzed automatically the moment it’s transcribed. Here’s a real sample, run through it.
Transit Director on the Leaked BRT Draft: “A Draft Is a Question, Not a Verdict”
City transit director Marcus Ellison responds to a leaked bus-rapid-transit draft that would cut Route 12's one-seat ride to downtown for east-side neighborhoods. Pressed by a city-hall reporter ahead of an afternoon deadline, Ellison confirms the document is one of four costed scenarios rather than a decision, concedes the human cost of forcing a transfer at the Halsted hub, and explains the ridership averages behind the plan while inviting the reporter to check the public farebox data. He addresses fears of privatization, draws a line at what he controls, and commits on the record to releasing the cost numbers for all four scenarios by Friday.
Themes
Notable quotes
- “A draft is a question, not a verdict.”
- “When a reporter checks my numbers, I sleep better, not worse.”
- “For a parent commuting with a stroller, a transfer in February is not a small thing.”
- “On the record, yes. All four, with the assumptions attached, by Friday.”
- “The plans that survive contact with a packed hearing room are almost never the plans that walked in.”
Q&A
Is the leaked bus-rapid-transit draft real, and does it cut Route 12?
Ellison calls it a working draft, one of four scenarios the board asked his office to cost out, and says nothing on Route 12 is final. He won't claim the cut is off the table, but he also won't say the line is gone.
If the board adopts this scenario, what do east-side riders actually lose?
Under that one scenario the one-seat ride downtown goes away and riders transfer once at the Halsted hub. Ellison won't soften it, noting that for a parent commuting with a stroller, a transfer in February is not a small thing, weighed against midday buses that some mornings carry nine people.
Where does the low ridership figure come from when riders say buses are packed?
He says both are true and blames averages: the 7:15 and 8:05 runs are standing-room while the midday runs are nearly empty. He points the reporter to the public farebox data and says he'd rather she pulled it, because when a reporter checks his numbers he sleeps better, not worse.
Is this the first step toward privatizing the east-side routes?
Ellison says the draft floats a contracted shuttle for the last mile, not the whole network. He concedes that going further would be a political decision above his pay grade, and argues residents should be in the room when that decision is made.
Will the full cost numbers be released, not just the page that leaked?
On the record, he commits to releasing all four scenarios with their assumptions attached by Friday, arguing that if the public is asked to weigh a hard trade-off, they deserve to see the whole ledger.
Clean, speaker-labeled, click-to-seek
Ask, don’t scrub
Ask the transcript anything.
An hour-long recording? Don’t skim it – ask. Every answer stays grounded in your transcript and cites the exact timestamp, so you can jump to the moment and check it yourself.
Did the director actually confirm Route 12 is being cut, or just that it might be?
He stops short of confirming a cut. Ellison calls the document a working draft, one of four scenarios the board asked his office to cost out, and says nothing on Route 12 is final. He adds he would be lying to say it is off the table, but also lying to say the line is gone.
What did he say riders would lose if this scenario is adopted?
Under that one scenario the one-seat ride downtown goes away and riders transfer once at the Halsted hub. He refuses to soften it, noting that for a parent commuting with a stroller, a transfer in February is not a small thing. On the record he also commits to releasing all four cost scenarios, with the assumptions attached, by Friday.
Grounded in your transcript – if the answer isn’t in the audio, it says so instead of guessing.
Who said what
Speaker labels that survive cross-talk
Automatic speaker diarization. Two people, four people, cross-talk and interruptions – interviews, panels, messy meetings. Pepys keeps each voice on its own line instead of blurring them into one, so you never rewind to figure out who was talking.
So the festival nearly didn't happen this year–
–it almost didn't. We lost the venue three weeks out.
Three weeks? How do you even start to–
You call everyone you know. The whole town pitched in.
And that's how it ended up in the park.
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Paste a link from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts – or drop in any audio or video file. We transcribe it once, then you export it however your workflow needs.
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Most useful for newsrooms: TXT · DOCX · SRT · VTT · PDF
Timestamps, speaker labels, and subtitle timing carry through to every export.
How newsroom transcription works
Upload or paste a link
Drop your clip or paste its link – any audio or video, in any language.
Get your transcript
A clean, speaker-labeled transcript with AI notes tuned to your format, ready in minutes.
Edit and export
Fix anything inline, then export to SRT, VTT, TXT, DOCX, PDF, or JSON.
Why newsrooms pick Pepys
No subscription, no seat licenses, pay per clip, and credits never expire, so freelance and staff budgets both work.
Speaker labels keep the source and the reporter straight, so quotes never get misattributed in a hurry.
Paste a YouTube, livestream, or direct audio link, no downloading the press-conference feed first.
We never train on your audio, which matters when the recording is an embargoed source.
What newsrooms say
had ~2 hrs of interviews to get through on deadline. uploaded the lot, got it back speaker-labeled and fully searchable, so i could jump straight to the quote i half-remembered instead of scrubbing the timeline for twenty minutes. genuinely saved the story.
Tomás H.Investigative journalist · Reddit I transcribe in the original language and receive a translated version with the subtitles still intact. It saved an entire round of contractor work on my last film. Thank you for building this.
Giulia F.Documentary filmmaker · email multilingual focus groups, transcribed and translated into one working language so i can compare responses side by side. used to wait days on a vendor for this – now its same-day.
Erica B.Market researcher · Product Hunt
Newsroom transcription – questions, answered
How do I transcribe an interview on deadline?
Upload the recording or paste its link (a YouTube clip, a livestream, or a direct audio URL) and Pepys returns a speaker-labeled transcript in minutes, plus the themes, notable on-the-record quotes, and a Q&A breakdown so you can find your lead fast.
Are the quotes verbatim and correctly attributed?
Yes. Speaker diarization separates each voice and the transcript is word-for-word, so the line you quote matches what was actually said and is tied to the right person. You can rename “Speaker 1” to the source's name and it updates everywhere.
Can it handle a long press conference or council meeting with many speakers?
Yes. Multi-speaker public recordings come back speaker-separated and timestamped, so a two-hour hearing reads as a navigable document instead of one wall of text.
Is my audio kept private if the source is sensitive?
We never train on your audio. For embargoed material or a confidential source, that matters, and it is the reason a lot of reporters keep their tape here rather than in a general consumer tool.
What can I export for a story?
Plain text, a DOCX you can drop into the CMS, SRT and VTT captions for the video desk, and a PDF for the record. One click each, with timestamps preserved.
How accurate is it with crosstalk, accents, and other languages?
It auto-detects the spoken language across 99+ languages and handles overlapping speech and a range of accents. Anything it misses you can fix inline in the editor before you file.
Do I have to subscribe?
No. Pepys is pay-as-you-go, buy a block of hours, use them whenever, and the credits never expire. You can start free with 60 minutes, no card, which is enough to clear a stack of interviews.
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