News or Noise? Why You Should Care?

In May 2024, Apple launched an advertisement titled as “Crush”. The ad showcases a hydraulic press smashing various items, revealing their launch of iPad Pro, marketing the compact appearance of the device despite being an all-in-one creative tool.

This advertisement was criticized for being insensitive to traditional forms of creativity. In response to the public outrage and diverse range of comments, Apple issued a rare apology and pulled the advertisement from its TV rotation.

Kudos to the effective monitoring by Apple as it could promptly detect public sentiment and was able to maintain its reputation to date.
That is why you didn’t hear about this earlier.

Catch a glimpse of the advertisement here.

The impact of news and media goes far beyond simply covering the happening; it can also shape public opinion, impact legislative decisions, reduce the likelihood of financial crimes, empower journalists to reveal truths, provide investors with helpful information, and assist companies in determining the degree of risk associated with each client.

In this article, you will find answers to the top three questions that have been there for the longest time now. Since traditional forms of journalism became out of place, every headline counts today!

What is news monitoring? How do you monitor news, and why should you care? It’s finally time to find answers to these now.

What is News Monitoring?

News monitoring is the practice of tracking and analyzing media coverage around targeted subjects or entities. This monitoring can help you stay informed about the latest and viral events, both locally and globally.

Media Monitoring Vs. News Monitoring

There’s a very thin line in keeping both these apart.

It is critical to note that media monitoring differs from news monitoring.

The difference lies in the broader media coverage and more precise coverage in news monitoring, which taps into relevant news coverage, focusing on tracking relevant trends, competitor actions, industry shifts, and key events that could impact the business.

While media monitoring offers a broader picture of media exposure, news monitoring tools have a competitive advantage in offering immediate alerts on breaking news, competitor movements, or market changes.

How to Monitor News?

One question down. Now is the time to decode another puzzle that would answer exactly what you need to know to begin with it.

Here’s how you can monitor news?

Media Mentions

Ever found yourself chasing a faint memory of a news article, holding on to just a single word?

Days go by as you scroll through the internet, hoping to find the exact match. That’s where media mention, and keyword inclusion can help you track down the exact news you’re searching for in no time at all.

All you need is to choose an appropriate news monitoring software by which a simple mention makes tracking easy and efficient.

An efficient new monitoring tool lifts half of the burden of scanning the web 24/7 and detects public mentions for the subject of your interest.

Such automated news monitoring can enable real-time updates for your:

• Included Keywords – which could be anything from brand name, entity name, campaign or product mention, etc.
• Excluded Keywords – which could be anything that you may not want queries against. Such as a drug company might not need articles using the word “drug” because that’s not an adverse mention for them.
• Any of the Keywords – could be anything matching the exact keyword provided by the user.

But what about the language differences?

Language/ Country Filters

Ever opened a tab only to be greeted by a wall of text in a language you don’t understand? Frustrating, isn’t it?

We get it!  That’s why media Watcher can now cut through the noise and deliver news tailored to your preferred country and language, so no news remains unnoticed.

A missed alert can make all the difference between capitalizing on a trend and taking a massive hit due to a lack of information.

Are you confident enough to say you know it all – think again!

Sentiment Analysis

Media mentions, and filters are just the initial steps into new monitoring. The real test steps are during the stage of analyzing the sentiment behind each piece of news.

Curating your opinion on a wrong analysis can change public sentiment for your business or PR agency.

So, what should be the next step?

You can try gaining a competitive advantage by pacing up the game for sentiment analysis and gaining quick insight into the increase in positive or negative mentions over time.

How do you get this?

An efficient news monitoring tool can help you fetch all relevant news sources by tapping into a quick summary for each alongside an overall consensus for all the fetched results, so you don’t have to sit there for another hour trying to reach a conclusion.

Media Watcher is pacing up the game by offering:

• 400+ risk categories for easy understanding of the nature of the news
• 200+ entity tags with an option to add your own
• Case-based and news-based sentiment analysis

Top 3 Use Cases of News Monitoring

If you are reading this, you might already know what are the possible use cases of news monitoring.

Still, if you’re new to this and putting things out clearly can help reiterate the benefits, here are the possible use cases of news monitoring services.

Manage Crisis & Reputation

We all reach a point once in life where an intrusive thought calls for a question: how to stay ahead of emerging controversies? Why is it so?

It is because, subliminally, we all agree that:

“Reputation takes years to build, but it might just take one incident, and there blows the risk of losing it all.”

Recall the example of Apple, described in the beginning, and how efficient news monitoring can help respond quickly and in the right manner before it sparks a full-blown controversy.

Industry Trends

Your business cannot operate in the dark. For you to reach a goal, there must have to be a competitive analysis.

This can be done in two ways:

1. Either measure your current performance against past performance
2. By analyzing industry trends and benchmarking your top competitors

Each headline about your company can shift the entire market sentiment. The recent unfolding of the Bitfinex hack emerged as the worst nightmare for the victims.

According to the Guardian “ A major downward swing in bitcoin prices before the attack, from $650 a coin to about $600, has led to speculation that knowledge of an upcoming attack might have been leaked to the market beforehand. Following Bitfinex’s confirmation of a hack, bitcoin prices fell a further 20%.”

Would you wait for headlines to write your story, keep track of industry trends, and draw calculative insights before making significant investments?

The risks of changing dynamics are real, but so are the news screening tools within your reach to always stay one step ahead.

Decision Making

Apart from using news solely to keep track of competitors, news monitoring can also help you reframe your brand as per the tracked analysis.

Here are a few ways how you can do it:

1. Monitoring news can help you analyze competitors, thus alternatively guiding you toward gaps where you could take the lead.
2. Daily news monitoring can help you track the mentions, thus guiding you toward the public sentiment

Why to only use news monitoring? Unlike any other source of gathering information, news is more credible and unbiased, never leading you to more credible insights.

Why is Media Watcher making waves?

Unlike traditional days of news monitoring, where journalism was all about crispy paper and blank ink and the peculiar scent of fresh paper in the hand, the modern age demands a quick solution without having to scroll from millions of news sources and struggle to validate the authenticity of it.

Among many news monitoring tools on the market, are you ready to try the one that fits your needs?

Here’s a quick analysis that can serve as a meditation in your diffusing state of conflict.