The media blacklist in Media Intelligence helps you exclude specific media outlets from your search results. This is particularly useful when certain sources are irrelevant to your research or when you intentionally wish to exclude specific media.
This allows you to focus your list of results more effectively on the media outlets that truly matter for your topic, target audience, and communication strategy.
Why a media blacklist makes sense
Not every media outlet that matches the topic of a search is necessarily relevant to your specific research needs.
Some outlets may be too broad, fail to align with your target audience, or simply play no role in your communication strategy. Other sources might appear frequently in your results without actually being helpful for the task at hand.
The media blacklist allows you to hide such outlets, making your list of results clearer and more relevant.
Refining your results more precisely
The blacklist is especially helpful when a search yields good results overall but consistently includes specific media outlets you do not wish to use.
Instead of narrowing the entire search—which could cause you to lose relevant hits—you can selectively exclude individual media outlets. The core search logic remains intact, while unwanted sources are removed from the results.
This approach is often more precise than using exclusion keywords, as you are excluding a specific media outlet rather than a topic or a word.
Typical use cases
You might use the media blacklist, for example, when you do not want to target specific media outlets for a campaign.
It is also useful for recurring research tasks where certain sources consistently generate hits that are not a good thematic fit.
Another use case involves internal guidelines: if specific media outlets, portals, or sources are not to be considered for your communications, you can remove them from your research using the blacklist.
Difference from exclusion keywords
Exclusion keywords remove results based on specific words or topics. The media blacklist, by contrast, operates at the media outlet level.
This is an important distinction. If you exclude a specific term, potentially relevant results might disappear simply because that term appears somewhere in the article. In contrast, if you blacklist a specific media outlet, other outlets covering the same topics remain visible.
The blacklist is therefore particularly useful when you want to exclude a specific source rather than a topic.
Use with caution
Use the media blacklist judiciously. Excluding too many media outlets can overly restrict your list of results.
You should therefore regularly review whether the excluded outlets should remain excluded. The relevance of specific media outlets can change over time, especially with saved searches intended for long-term use.
If you are unsure, compare your results with and without the blacklist enabled. This allows you to see the impact the blacklist has on your results.
Interaction with other filters
The media blacklist can be combined with other filters—such as language, country, specific regions, postal code areas, the data source, or keywords.
This allows you to refine your research step-by-step: first define the topic, then narrow down the region or data source, and finally use the blacklist to specifically remove unwanted media outlets.
Summary
The media blacklist is a tool for excluding unwanted media outlets from your media intelligence results. It helps make result lists clearer and more relevant without unnecesarily altering the core search logic.
Use the blacklist selectively when you wish to exclude specific sources. However, regularly review whether these exclusions still make sense to ensure relevant media outlets are not inadvertently hidden on a permanent basis.
