What passes for informed comment and insight is akin to bar room talk after the last call bell is rung.
If you read Peter Ludlow’s briefings, you notice how wide of the mark most of the English speaking press is on the deliberations of EU leaders during the Eurpean Council meeting.
As a lobbyist, you need to avoid the descent into fantasy writing and embracing wild speculation. Your training in tea leaf reading is limited.
It is too common to be informed of some wild conspiracy and change of events, that when checked with cold reality just are not true. And, when the conspiracy gets shared in the inner-sanctum of of self-reinforcing babble chamber, the fantasy becomes real insider the minds of many.
The only problem is that fantasy is not reality and building your actions on this quick sand of self-belief is not sound.
An Alternative Approach
I prefer two approaches.
The first, is to speak to the person holding the pen on the decision, and asking them some simple questions like who, what, when, how, why, and what’s next.
The second, is to triangulate and speak to at least three sources, intimately involved in the decision, preferabbly sitting in the room. Again, asking simple questions.
Either approach leads to duller and accurate information. The tone is more sober fiction than mind bending fantasy writing. Less entertaining for sure, but more useful I hope.
It is astonishing that this needs to be written down. But in an age where lobbyists wake up to news on whatever your preferred morning newsletter wrote down after the end of a long day yesterday, this is extremely valuable advice!