You ask, we answer: How long should I keep my tapes?
Lauren writes, “Hi! First let me say, I love the blog and the books! I am a bit of a Renegade Writer groupie. [Ed: Thanks! 
] Now for my question. I like to record my interviews instead of transcribing, but all my audio folders on my digital voice recorder are now full. Do I need to keep copies of the recorded interviews forever? Until the article prints? I do keep copies of my post interview notes (which I take while listening to the interview) but am on the fence about what to do with those recordings. Thanks again for all the advice!”
Lauren, the beauty of a digital voice recorder means you can download the files onto a computer hard disk. I’m curious: did your voice recorder come with software and some kind of file transfer cable? Usually these recorders do come with them: once you download the software, you can hook up your recorder to the computer with a USB or firewire cable and transfer the files to your hard disk. Read through the documentation you have and see what you can find out. Otherwise, I don’t see the usefulness of this recorder for a writer, unless you’re willing to use it as an idea catcher or something like that.
I keep my recordings forever. With tapes and hard disk space being so cheap, why not? Plus, digital files don’t take up much room on my hard disk or backups. I’d recommend you do the same. You just never know when you’ll need them.
Have more writing-releated questions for us? Send them to questions [at] therenegadewriter [dot] com. [db]
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May 31, 2007 Advice, You Ask, We Answer
One counter-point to consider: If you retain your recordings, they are vulnerable to being subpoenaed if you (or a publication you write for) is ever sued for libel in relation to something you wrote. There have also been a few high profile cases of writers spending time in jail for refusing to divulge the identity of sources to law enforcement. (This is more of a problem if you do investigative journalism, but one never knows.) Yes, these subpoenas can be contested (often successfully), but fighting to quash a subpoena costs time and money.
I actually wrote for one local publication that mandated that all writers’ notes, tapes, etc. must be destroyed as soon as the article in question was submitted. Their rationale was that it was easier to simply state their policy that no records be retained than it would have been to fight subpoenas. I don’t know how often they got sued, but given their policy I suspect the answer is “at least once”.
I’ve also been told that it’s important — in terms of defending lawsuits — that your retention policies for notes, recordings, etc. be uniform and consistent. If you always retain notes for a certain amount of time and then discard them, it doesn’t look suspicious if notes that turn out to be relevant to a lawsuit or subpoena have been destroyed on schedule.
Personally, I retain stuff in electronic form — my typed notes, interview recordings, etc. — for about 3 years, and destroy my rough paper notes as soon as I’ve transcribed the relevant portions. Since I have a copy of the recording to fall back on, there seems little purpose to keeping the rough notes once the article’s written.
Wow. Tammy I never even thought of that. Thanks.
Diana, my voice recorder didn’t come with any software but I am sure I could track some down somewhere. I guess it is worth the extra step to put them on discs. I have my work cut out for me freeing up all that space in my recorder! I should have been more proactive and kept up with it from the start. Oh well, lesson learned.
Thanks!