If I want to understand an issue I like to read and listen to experts and the original sources.
I find that if I rely on third hand accounts I loose something of the nuance.
If I want to understand the dynamics behind a political or regulatory issue I find there is no better way than listen to the key people and read the papers. I’ll read both the proposals and the background papers. I don’t like to leave things to chance.
It is always best to ask the person behind a proposal to explain the reasons and reasoning for the initiative. It is usually adds a lot more than just reading the papers.
Today, there are less face to face meetings. But, you can still get a good understanding by watching and listening to European Parliament exchanges.
For a long time, I’ve downloaded the Environment Committee exchanges on the issues that interest me.
Sometimes, I can’t listen to exchanges in the Committee live. There is an easy way around this. I use two apps to make this work easier.
First, a nice piece of software, Downie, allows you to download most videos.
Second, you can upload the video clip to Otter Voice . That will give you a very good transcript of the debate.
I can listen to the exchange, in fast forward if needed, and I can cross reference it to a transcript.
The whole exercise of clipping and transcribing takes about 5 minutes.
It allows me to keep up to date in my limited areas of interest. I get a better take on the Parliamentary mood on those issues. And, I got useful reference material from the transcript and video.
If I need to flag an issue to anyone, I can edit the video and transcript, and send it within a few minutes.
The alternative would be to hire skilled people to sit in those meetings and take the notes for me, or use some of the excellent summary services that are available. This way, I can get around the filtering that these both lead to.
I am testing out some AI software to see how accurate it is at doing summaries of debates.