My main occupation during these months has been press monitoring. It may sound a bit tedious, but the constant newsfeed and the press room atmosphere of the office keeps me quite alert.
Here is a brief description and some personal thoughts on what we do.
Organizational structure
The Unit is divided in four groups covering
- American press & News Agencies
- British press
- French & EU press
- German-speaking press
Predominance is given to quality newspapers and news agencies. Nevertheless, we do also monitor some tabloids whose articles may cause sensation and debate in the local media. We send the first news briefing at 09:00 am and then updates every three hours until 11:00 p.m.
Tools
Apart from our subscriptions to the online editions of the newspapers, we rely a lot on our Bloomberg Terminal which displays news from media all over the world according to the filters we have set (e.g. Eurozone, Refugee crisis, Tourism, etc.). The information that is sent from the Press Offices abroad can be a complimentary source of information. Twitter is also a great tool for breaking news and for monitoring trending topics.
Content
What kind of news should I include?
Apart from some the obvious subjects (Eurozone, financial crisis, immigration, terrorism and opinions on government performance), each team member has some discretion over the articles and the subject categories to include in her/his update. What I personally do in order to filter the flow of information, is to define my target groups analyzing my list of recipients – which can include from law enforcement agencies, to the social media team of our organization. Thus, by just looking who’s on my contact list, I chose the articles according to their needs and interests.
Another dilemma is whether to, and to what extent, include news on international issues which although are widely covered by the international media (e.g. the CETA agreement, are not considered a top priority at national level. My opinion is that these issues should be included, even briefly, as they give us a bigger picture of what is at stake on the global level. Besides, sooner or later, our policy makers will also have to face these issues.
News Vs Opinion
Since we arrive at our contacts’ inbox every three hours, it is very seldom that we can play a role as a source of breaking news. Nevertheless, when an important piece of information appears in every possible media outlet we somehow feel compelled to include it with the danger of our report being repetitive. Far more interesting is to monitor the opinions that are being formed on the issues most crucial to our organization.
Goals
Eventually, through that process, we can observe if and how attitudes towards the positions of the country change through time [see also: Mapping international press attitudes].
That brings me to the other issue of internal debate, whether our job is journalistic or limited to the translation and summary of foreign press. I believe that it is neither but rather to transmit the international atmosphere on crucial issues with the purpose of helping decision making both on the policy and the communication level.
Lina Syriopoulou 