I love podcasts. Not just because they are handy ways to listen to interviews or consume interesting information, but because of how much easier they make my life as a journalist.

Rather than typing up notes on my laptop during an interview, I can have a conversation with someone and record it. In the past, I seldom used the recordings I routinely made during interviews because it took so long to transcribe them.

For a few years, I used a transcription service (which wasn’t cheap) but then came AI transcription websites. Take your recorded .mp3 and upload it. Within 15 minutes, you have a pretty good transcript of that conversation. These days there are numerous such offerings, but I have been team Otter.ai for a good while now. The entry-level price of $10 – or R186 – a month seems steep, I know, but I often subscribe for a month or two and then unsubscribe until I need it again.

It also means I get two different work products, a podcast and an article, with minimum effort. I call this lazy journalism. But then again, I am a high-functioning lazy person.

For the last few years, I have used a dedicated recorder – made by a Japanese firm called Zoom, which predates the Covid-era software of the same name. I also schlepped a pair of Sennheiser microphones (and XLR cables) with me. I have flown to New York and Nairobi with these and was always aggrieved at the extra weight that made my backpack that much heavier.

But technology moves on, and often very swiftly.