Getting rid of notes
Yesterday I spent several minutes with my audio recorder, thumbing through 99 recordings of past interviews and erasing them off the machine. I know, I was lazy and I should've just deleted them a long time ago.
Usually I wait a week after the date my story is published until I either throw away a notebook or erase the recording. I think a week is good enough time for all parties involved to respond to any concerns regarding a story. If it's a particularly sensitive story, I wait a little longer.
As far as computer notes, however, I generally end up holding on to them the whole time. It's nice to have a rolodex of past quotes to rely on, even though I rarely ever use them.
So I was just wondering how long you guys take before deleting recordings, or throwing away notes in general?