How do I search for paid content in the Media Monitor?

In the Media Monitor you not only have access to public news sources, but also to paid content from various providers. These paid sources often contain in-depth information, analyses and background that are not always available in open news. By actively including this content in your searches, you gain a more complete view of how your brand, organisation or topic appears in the media. This makes it easier to measure communication efforts, identify trends and map out the actual impact of your message.

• What is paid content?
• Why searching in paid content is relevant
• How to search for paid content in the Media Monitor
• Overview of national web content and newspapers from ANP

What is paid content?

Paid content consists of news articles, analyses and publications that require a licence to read. In the Media Monitor you gain access to these sources through agreements you as a customer can make with various providers. Spotler arranges the connection between these paid articles and the provider. This means that within one environment you can search both open news and premium publications without needing separate subscriptions yourself. 

Why searching in paid content is relevant

Paid content provides access to articles and analyses hidden behind a paywall. These sources offer more depth and context than much open news, giving you a more complete picture of how your organisation, topics or campaigns are discussed. It helps to:

• Measure the impact of communication efforts: you see where your message truly lands
• Better understand trends and sentiment: premium sources often offer better interpretation
• Fully monitor your reputation: you don’t miss any national or specialist publications
• Serve important stakeholders well: executives, boards or spokespeople often expect insights from reliable national sources such as newspapers and press agencies. Paid content ensures you can fully inform them
• Make sharper strategic decisions: more complete information means better decision-making

How to search for paid content in the Media Monitor

Paid content is obtained from the provider based on a search query. Using this query, the provider searches for paid content that meets your search criteria. Through a connection between Spotler Engage and the provider, these articles appear in the Media Monitor.

If you have a search query in the Media Monitor based on your organisation’s name, you will see both public and paid content among the search results. If you want to specifically search all paid content coming in via your provider, we also have the contenttype operator.

Operator contenttype

The contenttype operator can be used to distinguish between public content and paid content.

• contenttype:public – searches all public content
• contenttype:premium – searches all paid content

If you want to separate public and paid content in a search query, you can apply the following:

• NOT contenttype:premium – excludes paid content
• AND contenttype:premium – includes paid content

Searching national vs. regional media in the Media Monitor

National and regional media each play a different role in your monitoring, and it is valuable to search both deliberately. 

To search national and/or regional media in the Media Monitor, you can use the source operator. This operator allows you to include or exclude sources.

Each provider of paid content supplies the source. The way the source is delivered is how you can search for that source in your query, for example:

LexisNexis provides paid web content from Algemeen Dagblad as follows: AD/Algemeen Dagblad.nl

You can copy and paste this source after the operator source:, resulting in the following query ➡️ source:"AD/Algemeen Dagblad.nl"

Overview of Dutch web content and newspapers from ANP

Below you will find an overview of Dutch web content and newspapers from ANP, how you can search for each specific source, and how to search multiple sources at the same time.

ANP - Dutch web content (online media)

ANP - Dutch newspapers (offline media)

Would you like to apply the above to regional sources as well? Then contact Customer Success. They will gladly show you how to quickly and easily create a regional search query for your monitoring.