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Upload a 90-minute interview and have a verbatim transcript, time-coded pullable quotes, and a story-ready draft within ten minutes. Source-safe, CMS-ready.
No credit card required · 10 recordings free every month
Mayor Interview 2026-04-12.m4a
58m · Captured for journalists
Reporters live and die by the turnaround. You finish the interview at 4:15, you file at 6:30, and in between you need the quote, the context, and the counter-point already pulled. Most transcription tools were built for lawyers or academics — they prioritize verbatim fidelity over speed and have no idea what a journalist needs on deadline.
Distill was built the other way. Upload a 90-minute interview and within ten minutes you have a verbatim transcript, a set of pre-pulled notable quotes with timestamps, a speaker-labeled document, and a draft story lead with two supporting quotes already positioned. Everything is exportable to WordPress, Arc, Ghost, Substack, or plain Markdown with one click.
Source safety is not an afterthought. Distill offers a private-workspace mode where interviews never leave your account, a redaction pass that scrubs source names from exports for you, and a 'confidential' flag that prevents sharing across workspaces. We don't use your recordings for training, full stop.
For podcasters and documentary producers, we handle long-form audio — up to 15 hours in a single session — and output time-coded transcripts compatible with Descript, Hindenburg, and Adobe Premiere. Fact-check in the transcript; assemble the cut in your editor.
Real workflows. No fluff.
Record or upload your interview and Distill returns a full transcript with time-coded quotes in under ten minutes. File at 6:30 with the quote you'd normally still be hunting at 6:28.
Distill identifies quotes that are sharp, complete, and self-contained — the ones that actually pull. Each comes with a timestamp, a speaker label, and 30 seconds of context before and after.
For sensitive interviews, Distill can redact source names, locations, and identifying details from the exported transcript while preserving the record for your private reference.
Up to 15-hour sessions for long-form interviews. Time-coded transcripts export to Descript, Hindenburg, and Premiere XML. Fact-check in text, assemble in your editor.
Export a scaffolded story with lead, nut graph, two supporting quotes, and context ready for your editor. Not a replacement for writing — a running start.
Stars mark the top 3 features for journalists.
| Feature | Distill | Generic AI tools |
|---|---|---|
| ★10-minute turnaround on 60-min interviews | Median 6 min for 60-min audio | Often 30+ min |
| ★Pullable quote extraction | Context-complete quotes with timestamps | Not supported |
| ★Source redaction on export | Name/location/date scrubbing | Raw transcript |
| Multi-speaker interview handling | Up to 8 speakers labeled | 1–2 speakers |
| Foreign-language interviews | 100+ languages with translation | English-first |
| Descript / Hindenburg / Premiere export | Native formats | Copy/paste |
| CMS export (WordPress, Arc, Ghost, Substack) | One-click | Not supported |
| Private workspace / no training | Source-safe by default | Often training data |
| Background noise handling (cafes, street) | Noise-robust model | Struggles |
| 15-hour session support | Full podcast episodes | 30 min |
“I broke a 900-word city hall story at 6:45 PM that I'd normally miss because of transcription. Distill turned a 42-minute interview into pull-quotes and a scaffold by 6:20. I'm paying for this forever.”
Priya G.
City reporter, metro daily
“For my podcast, the time-coded transcripts export straight to Descript. I fact-check the text, make cuts in the editor, and my post-production is 3x faster.”
Marcus L.
Independent podcaster
“Source safety is why I switched from Otter. Distill's redaction pass is designed for confidential interviews in a way most consumer tools ignore.”
Hana F.
Investigative reporter
ChatGPT and generic transcribers miss the details that matter. Distill was built for your workflow.
Median turnaround on a 60-minute interview is 6 minutes on Plus and 3 minutes on Pro. Generic tools often take 30+ minutes for the same file, especially on free tiers.
Distill identifies the sharp, self-contained quotes — not the 'ums' and half-thoughts. Each extracted quote comes context-complete with a timestamp so you can verify in the audio.
We offer BAAs, DPAs, private workspaces, and source-redaction exports. We don't use your recordings for training. Generic tools often don't even promise the last point.
Press conferences, cafes, crowded events, bad phone lines — our model was tuned for the noisy audio reporters actually record, not studio interviews.
Janelle was working a six-month investigation into municipal contracting irregularities. Dozens of interviews, many with confidential sources, some in environments where phones had to stay in pockets. Transcription was a six-week bottleneck.
She moved to Distill mid-project. Interview uploads that used to take overnight to transcribe came back in ten minutes. The source-redaction pass scrubbed names from her exported working drafts so she could share with editors without exposing sources. Her editor used to receive her drafts with placeholder '[SOURCE]' markers she'd added by hand — Distill did that step for her.
The investigation published at the original deadline. Two follow-up pieces went out the next week using Distill's cross-interview search to find repeated claims across sources — a pattern she would have missed scrolling through scattered docs.
Outcome: Six-month investigation published on schedule with automated source redaction, 10-minute interview turnaround, and cross-source pattern detection that drove two follow-up stories.
Plus is enough for most beat reporters. Pro adds priority turnaround, 15-hour sessions for documentary work, and source-redaction exports.
The story doesn't wait. Neither should the transcript. File faster, verify quotes against audio in one click, and protect your sources without extra work.