A tiered approach to choosing national, regional, trade, and digital sources without bloating your feed.
Start with who needs the coverage
Source selection should follow the audiences who consume the output. Executives usually need national coverage and high reach business outlets, while product or site teams need regional press tied to their operations.
Write down the top three decisions the monitoring output supports. Those decisions tell you which sources are essential and which are optional.
Build a tiered source model
Tier 1 is high reach national coverage that shapes reputation. Tier 2 is trade and sector specific outlets that drive credibility. Tier 3 is regional and local press that affects hiring, planning, or community impact.
Start with a short list in each tier and expand only when you can show a clear decision that the extra sources improve.
Include reliable digital sources
Digital first publishers, industry newsletters, and regulator blogs often break stories earlier than traditional outlets. Add them when they consistently influence your stakeholders.
Avoid noisy content farms and duplicate syndication. One strong digital source is better than ten copies of the same story.
Review and prune quarterly
Track how often a source appears in meaningful coverage and whether it changes actions. If a source never shows up in decisions, remove it.
Quarterly reviews keep the list focused and prevent the slow creep that turns monitoring into an unreadable feed.