A practical way to reduce false positives while keeping urgent issues visible.
Define what urgent really means
Urgency is a business rule, not a feeling. Identify the types of stories that require action within hours, such as safety incidents, regulatory action, or executive misconduct.
If a story does not trigger a defined action, it should not trigger an immediate alert.
Use exclusions aggressively
Add negative keywords, unrelated companies, and common word collisions to your query. Every exclusion you add should remove noise without hiding real risk.
Review exclusions monthly to ensure they still match reality, especially after product launches or leadership changes.
Route alerts by audience
The crisis team needs immediacy. Comms teams need daily summaries. Analysts may need full data feeds. Separate alerting rules by audience to avoid overload.
Different alert cadences reduce fatigue and increase response speed when real issues appear.
Measure false positives and false negatives
Keep a simple log of alerts that were irrelevant and stories you missed. This gives you evidence to adjust queries.
A good monitoring setup evolves. Regular tuning is the difference between a trusted signal and background noise.