Lessons and how we apply them
The Iran Conflict Scenario Monitor improves in public. Each phase of the war has taught us something about how to track it well, and this page records what we observed and what we changed in response. It will grow as the monitor does: this is the first lesson, and more will follow as later phases close.
Information intake
After four months of Phase One we reviewed the information diet: which sources produced material we used, and where coverage depended on judgement rather than a fixed rule.
The monitor now looks in five places, each catching what the others miss. The same 54 web searches run every cycle: 32 across nine subject areas, and two for each of eleven countries in the region — one in English, one in the country's own language. A further seven countries are searched only when events pull them in. A search that turns up nothing is recorded as such. Specialist publications are read directly rather than found by searching. Leading news outlets are searched by name, in English and other languages, along with coverage that quotes them. A global news database is searched in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, French and German, so a story breaking in Tehran or the Gulf does not have to reach a Western wire before we see it. And temporary searches are added for a developing story, then dropped when it fades.
It also checks harder. Two outlets running the same wire report no longer count as two confirmations. Claims about diplomacy, strikes and casualties each have their own standard of proof. And everything is checked against our full record of the war before it can be reported as new.
