Opposing view: All we want to do is read the news

The bizarre media interest in a bureaucratic solicitation for a generic “media monitoring” vendor to support a Department of Homeland Security agency should baffle anyone who works in government, business and — particularly — journalism. Yet, DHS’ recent public advertisement to secure the services of an ordinary “news clip” company to aggregate stories from around the world has hijacked the overexcited imagination of some.

This type of media service, which has been in use by private and public sector public affairs teams for generations, allows DHS to respond better to noted public concerns, participate in informed public policy debates, monitor global security events in real time, and provide journalists follow-up comment on recently reported stories. The solicitation also required a database of reporters who cover our issues — basically a digital Rolodex of reporters — so policymakers can follow their reporting and contact them.

Instead of hiring a team of multilingual, 24-hour-a-day news hawks to monitor global media, we decided to do what is unequivocally standard, routine and customary for most every Fortune 500 business, government agency and newsroom: We asked the private sector to provide a far better technology solution at a fraction of the expected in-house cost.

Fortunately, some in the media understand how common and useful these clips are and did not buy into the faux hysteria.

“This is nothing more than an attempt at media analysis. It’s not at all different from what I have seen other agencies undertake to better understand the communication landscape. In fact, it would be PR malpractice not to put something like this together,” said John Kirby, a CNN military analyst and former spokesman at the Departments of State and Defense.

All we want to do is read news stories posted online and email reporters our press releases. That seems pretty harmless.