AI Topic Summaries in News Monitoring

What are News Summaries?

When you select a topic in News Monitoring, Listen now generates an AI summary of how the media is covering that topic. Instead of reading through dozens or hundreds of individual articles, you get a quick overview of the main storylines, which outlets are driving them, and how broadly the coverage is spreading.

This is built for Public Information Officers, City Managers, and communications teams who need to understand the media landscape quickly, especially when preparing a response or briefing stakeholders.

What the Summary Tells You

News summaries focus on journalistic framing and coverage patterns, not community sentiment. The summary answers one question: how is the media covering this topic right now?

Each summary includes:

• An opening statement: A high-level picture of the overall coverage landscape, including how much coverage the topic is receiving, which outlet types are involved, and whether any stories have crossed into broadcast.
• 2-3 theme clusters: The main sub-narratives within the topic, each with a percentage share of coverage. For example: affordability and rent increases (38%), the upcoming zoning vote (45%), and encampment coverage (17%).
• Per-theme detail: The specific angle journalists are taking, which outlet types are driving it, and how widely it is spreading.

News summaries do not include sentiment data. For community sentiment on a topic, use the Social summary in Listen.

When the Summary Appears

The summary appears after you select a topic in News Monitoring, above the article list. It starts collapsed — click the arrow to expand it.

Summaries are generated once daily at 7:00 AM in your local timezone, drawing from the most relevant articles in the past 7 days for that topic. A timestamp is shown so you always know when the summary was last generated.

Working with the Summary

Once expanded, you can:

• Expand / Collapse: Use the arrow to show or hide the full summary.
• Copy: Copy the summary text to your clipboard for use in briefings or communications.
• Add to Report: Add the summary to a report draft with one click.
• Get Detailed Analysis: Generate a more detailed version of the summary.
• Thumbs up / Thumbs down: Rate the summary to help improve future results.

Filter Awareness

The default summary reflects the last 7 days of articles with no additional filters applied. If you change the date range or apply outlet filters, a notice will appear indicating the summary is based on default settings. Click "Regenerate" to produce a new summary that reflects your current filters.

Using News Summaries in Reports

News summaries can be added to your reports the same way Social summaries can. Select a news topic, open or create a report, and insert the summary from the editor. This unblocks a workflow that was previously unavailable for news topics.