What story is the media telling about you?

Welcome to Prompt, Tinker, Innovate—my AI playground. Each week, I test how AI can elevate real-world work. You get the prompt, the context, and the challenge.

This time: We’re handing AI the messy chaos of media coverage… and asking it to make sense of it all.

This week's playground: Make sense of the story being told

Why this matters

You’ve been in the news—great. But do you actually know:

• How your brand is being positioned?

• Which parts of your product are resonating… or totally ignored?

• What your next PR move should be?

Enter AI. This week, you’ll turn scattered coverage into a Media Analysis Brief—an executive-grade summary of what the media is saying, what they’re not, and what you should do about it.

What’s happening?

Comms teams are overwhelmed by noise—press clippings, analyst quotes, tweet threads. What they need is synthesis and strategy.

PR pros and marketing leads are starting to feed AI their latest coverage and ask:

• What's the dominant story here?

• What themes keep showing up?

• Where are we getting zero credit?

They’re using the results to brief execs, steer messaging, and plan the next pitch.

Your AI experiment: Try this prompt

👉 Time to tinker: Copy and paste the following prompt into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or your favorite AI tool. Add 3–5 recent media articles about your company, product, or space.

⚠️ Important tip: Most AI, tools—including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, don’t reliably read the content of external links. ChatGPT in particular may either ignore the link, hallucinate summaries, or say it doesn’t have access. 🤷‍♀️ Gemini and Claude are somewhat better at handling linked content, but still not fully reliable.

✅ For best results: Always upload PDFs or paste full text of the articles directly into the chat. This ensures the AI is working with exactly what you want it to analyze—no guessing, no drift.

📝 Prompt: "You are our head of strategic communications. Based on the following media coverage, create a Media Analysis Brief for our leadership team. Include:

1. Core narrative: What story is the media telling about us? How are we positioned?

2. Coverage gaps: Which features, products, or messages are missing or underplayed?

3. Message momentum: Which ideas are gaining traction or repetition across articles?

4. Media tone: What’s the dominant sentiment—enthusiastic, skeptical, neutral? Does it shift by outlet?

5. Key quotes: Curate 3–5 quotes that capture the tone or message. Label as positive, neutral, or critical.

6. Strategic moves: Recommend 2–3 specific PR actions. Include campaign themes, pitch angles, or counter-narratives we should explore next.

Format it clearly with headers and bullet points. Assume your audience is the CEO and CMO."

💡 Pro tip: Push it further

• Add: “Now run this again for our top competitor. Compare the two briefs.”

• Or: “Now analyze our latest press release. Predict how media will spin it.”

What did you learn?

Did AI confirm what you suspected or uncover blind spots you didn’t see coming? Did it spark a shift in messaging? Reply and share your most surprising insight.