Why media monitoring is essential and who the primary users are - defence of Immigration Minister Scott Morrison.

Life has been tough for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison all year with various protests being held criticising his stance on asylum seekers.  That flak has moved to another level today, with the Sydney Morning Herald reporting that Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles has criticised his media monitoring spend ($120,000) in the last 12 months.

For those not familiar with the field, media monitoring is where the Government pays a company, iSentia, to track mentions of their name or portfolio obligations.  This means that even that article will go back to Morrison's media communications team because he was mentioned, and he'll need to decide whether or not to respond to the allegations of wasteful spending.

What the Sydney Morning Herald didn't tell you is that EVERY government monitors media.  Prior to the Coalition gaining power last September, Labor also used media monitoring firms iSentia and AAP (before they sold the department to iSentia for an undisclosed sum).  It is not just governments who monitor the media for mentions.  Not for profit organisations and businesses such as Dominos do too.  It allows them to quash a media story and set the record straight.  The reality is that with hundreds of media organisations and news outlets businesses and government departments just do not have the time or resources to monitor and track the news so they hire specialised companies, like iSentia to do the monitoring for them.

In this day and age when so much of political information is shared and gleaned in the news rather than first hand experience at meetings and the like, politicians utilise the media to get their message across.  How can you possibly respond to something if you don't know what's going on?  And it is Governments' jobs to know what the public think, media allows them to observe and respond to the public mood and therefore better deliver to their constituents.

The Sydney Morning Herald simply did not report the full story that all governments, businesses and not for profit organisations track mentions and have been doing so for decades, so to blame the Coalition and suggest they're the only ones who do is inaccurate and fuels ignorance.