Have you recorded an interview that just went wrong and now you are wondering whether to salvage it or scrap it? You may find that asking the following questions may help you to make the right decision:

The Decision is yours

First, the final decision should always be yours, even if you have a “pushy” guest who wants to know when it will be released. Your podcast is a reflection of you, so you should be happy with it.  Every podcaster has a story about the interview they had to scrap; think of it as a podcasting rite of passage.

Take a few listens

Don’t scrap the recording the first time you listen to it - if your first reaction is that it sounds horrendous, leave it for a few hours, or even a day or two, and come back to it. Can it be saved by a lot of editing? Is it possible to cut out any interruptions? As creatives we can often be very critical of our own work, so its important to take a break and come back to it.

What’s the message?

When you’ve listened to the whole interview; maybe several times, you should decide what the key themes and messages are. If the interview has been interrupted or lost direction, you can insert your own interpretations as an aid to the listener, while still maximizing your guest’s voice content. It might take more time, but if this was an important interview for you this could be a better option than scrapping it.

Be Transparent

Be honest with the guest and tell them the recording was less than ideal. Ask them if they would like to reschedule. This can be tricky if you’re the one who made a mistake; but come clean and admit it. Most people are happy to redo an interview. If the guest wasn’t prepared or had numerous interruptions (phone, dog, slamming doors) ask them if they could be in a quieter spot. If background noise and interruptions really affected the audio quality, then people won’t want to listen.

 Learn from this and maybe even create a short document for guests about how to prepare for an interview.

If you’ve explored all of the above and you still feel that none will work, then scrap it! You aren’t obligated to publish every interview.