The Trump administration may be ramping up their attacks on journalists and other media figures with their recent announcement to create a database that will monitor thousands of news organizations around the world.
This database of journalists, editors, foreign correspondents, and bloggers will identify top “media influencers,” Bloomberg Law reports. It turns out the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently seeking a contractor that will monitor social media, traditional news outlets and identify “any and all” coverage related to the agency or any particular event, according to a request for information on April 3.
The database will reportedly be called the "Media Intelligence and Benchmarking Platform” that will keep tabs on more than 290,000 news outlets, according to Gizmodo.
“Services shall provide media comparison tools, design and rebranding tools, communication tools, and the ability to identify top media influencers,” according to the statement. DHS agencies have “a critical need to incorporate these functions into their programs in order to better reach federal, state, local, tribal, and private partners.”
The database will be able to instantly translate media from 100 languages, including Chinese and Russian, into English, HuffPost reports. Critics of the announcement have reasons to be skeptical.
In recent months, President Donald Trump has used Twitter to harass media members and high-profile journalists like Jemele Hill, who he does not agree with politically or socially. Additionally, there have been constant attacks demeaning CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post as "fake news" since Trump's presidential campaign.
Communication firms and public relation agencies in the private sector utilize databases like this now and will continue. CNN military and diplomatic analyst John Kirby makes the case for the database and says that this will not be the first federal agency that keeps a database like this around.
“Given this administration’s denigration of most media outlets, I understand why the timing of this bid might look suspicious,” Kirby told CNN Politics. “But from what I can tell, 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.”
