Polecat vs Factiva: news archive or risk measurement?

Published by Polecat. Polecat is one of the two services compared here, so we have an interest in the outcome. Factiva details are drawn from Dow Jones announcements and authorised distributor materials as at October 2026, and we say plainly where Factiva is the better fit.

The short answer

Polecat vs Factiva is a comparison of two different jobs. Factiva, from Dow Jones, is a licensed news and business information archive, and it is the better choice for research, due diligence and searching premium journalism. Polecat is built for risk leaders who need external events scored, weighted to their own strategy and projected 3 to 6 months ahead, producing a comparable measure of exposure for the risk committee and board.

Put simply, Factiva helps an analyst find and read what has been published. Polecat measures what that, and much else in the outside world, means for one organisation's risk. Many teams will find a place for both.

Polecat vs Factiva at a glance

What does Factiva do well?

Factiva does licensed research exceptionally well. It gives users a deep archive of premium business journalism, with clear provenance and precise search tools, and it is trusted by information professionals for exactly that reason. For many research tasks it is the reference point.

Depth and provenance of licensed content. Factiva brings together Dow Jones's own titles, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Dow Jones Newswires, with a very large number of third-party newspapers, newswires and trade publications. Every result traces to a licensed source. For due diligence, background research and investigations, that combination of depth and provenance is hard to replace.

Research precision. Factiva's long-established taxonomy, Dow Jones Intelligent Identifiers, tags content by industry, region, subject, company and organisation. Together with Boolean search tools, it lets an experienced researcher build exact queries and return to them with confidence.

Rights-cleared content for AI. Dow Jones has built out a body of Factiva sources licensed specifically for generative AI use, with a publisher compensation model. Factiva Smart Summary, launched in November 2024 and built with Google Gemini models, produces cited summaries, and Factiva APIs supply licensed content into customers' own AI applications. For organisations whose legal teams require licensed inputs for AI, this is a real advantage.

A supplier to the wider market. Factiva content also reaches users through other intelligence platforms; Signal AI, for example, names Dow Jones Factiva among its licensed news sources. In that sense Factiva is often the underlying news layer rather than a direct competitor. Factiva is part of Dow Jones, a division of News Corp.

Best for: researchers, analysts and information professionals who need to search and read licensed premium business news, for due diligence, background research and monitoring.

What does Polecat do differently?

Polecat starts where an archive stops: it turns external developments into a measured, comparable and forward-looking view of one organisation's risk. Each point below rests on our published method, set out on our how it works page.

Measurement rather than search

Factiva's main products are search, summarisation and content licensing. Smart Summary produces cited summaries of articles, and Dow Jones does not describe it as producing risk scores. Turning search results into a comparable risk view is left to the user's analysts or to tools built on Factiva's APIs.

Polecat does that work as its core function. Every event is scored on the same six factors: severity, velocity, sentiment, authority, reach and history. Each score is benchmarked against 20 years of comparable events and updates the client's Risk Index, out of 100. A risk committee receives a number it can track, not a set of articles to read.

The whole outside world, merged into events

Factiva's strength is licensed journalism and business information. Polecat treats news as one source among many: it also monitors regulators and policy bodies, NGOs, academics and think tanks, earnings calls and AGMs, filings and enforcement, and investor and union sources, drawing on more than 1.4 million premium sources across 195 countries.

Many reports of the same development are merged into a single material event. An analyst reviews one scored event rather than the hundreds of articles a search might return on the same story.

Weighted to your strategy

A Factiva search returns what matches the query, whoever runs it. Polecat's Customer Intelligence Model calibrates to each client's own risk taxonomy, definitions and thresholds, so scores drop straight into the risk register in categories the team already uses.

It also reflects the fact that the same event can be a risk to one company and an opportunity to another. A new disclosure requirement may burden one firm and favour a competitor that already reports to that standard. Weighting to strategy captures that difference; a search result cannot.

A projection, not only a record

An archive is a record of what has been published. Polecat projects each risk 3 to 6 months ahead, with a base, best and worst case scenario and a probability attached to each. Its horizon scan looks 12 months back and 90 days forward and classifies each risk theme as chronic, recurring, emerging, dormant, contained or fizzled. Because the scoring is consistent, the same method also supports peer benchmarking, comparing an organisation's exposure with its peers and its industry.

Delivered into the risk function, at a published price

Every Polecat score traces back to its source evidence, for audit trails and board reporting. Delivery follows the Two-Layer Model: Key Posting Alerts, Daily Risk Briefings and weekly Executive News Briefs in the daily layer; live dashboards, the platform workspace and board reports in the monthly or quarterly layer, on one quantification engine. An API feeds GRC and integrated risk management platforms, MCP makes the data available in AI assistants such as Microsoft Copilot, Claude and ChatGPT, and sector analysts covering finance, energy, pharma, retail, and data and AI check outputs and work with clients.

Polecat publishes its entry price, a fixed-scope £25K Risk Intelligence Audit. Factiva's licensing is quote-based.

When is Factiva the better choice?

Factiva is the better choice when the task is research: finding, reading and citing licensed business journalism. Polecat is not designed to replace it for that work.

• You run due diligence, background checks or investigations and need to search a deep archive of premium news.
• Your information professionals rely on precise Boolean queries and an established taxonomy.
• You need licensed, rights-cleared content to feed your own generative AI applications.
• Your users want to read the source journalism itself, rather than a scored view of it.

When is Polecat the better choice?

Polecat is the better choice when the question is how exposed the organisation is, relative to its peers, and where each risk is heading.

• Your risk committee needs a comparable Risk Index it can track over time and benchmark against peers and the industry.
• Regulators, NGOs, academics, think tanks and investors matter to your risk picture as much as the business press.
• You want external risk calibrated to your own taxonomy and strategy, without analysts building and maintaining searches.
• Your board wants a 3 to 6 month projection with scenarios and probabilities, and every score traceable to source evidence.

At Wendy's, 25% of documented risks are first surfaced by Polecat's horizon scanning, before they appear anywhere else on the register. As Bob Bowman, its Chief Risk Officer, puts it: "you cannot model what you cannot see."

Can you use both Polecat and Factiva?

Yes, and they fit together naturally. Factiva serves the researcher who needs to read and cite the journalism; Polecat serves the risk function that needs a measured, weighted and projected view of exposure. Polecat is designed to run alongside existing monitoring tools rather than replace them.

A common pattern is for Polecat to surface and score a development, and for an analyst to use a research archive to investigate the background in depth. Our guide to Strategic External Intelligence sets out how measurement differs from monitoring and search. For a wider field, see our guides to the best risk intelligence platforms for CROs and the best horizon scanning tools.

Frequently asked questions

Is Polecat a Factiva alternative?

Not in the usual sense. Factiva is a licensed news and business information archive from Dow Jones, used for research, due diligence and monitoring. Polecat is a Strategic External Intelligence service that scores events across the whole outside world, weights them to the client's strategy and projects each risk 3 to 6 months ahead. Researchers who need to search licensed journalism should keep Factiva; risk teams needing measured exposure may add Polecat.

Does Factiva provide risk scores?

Factiva's main products are search, AI-generated summaries and licensed content for enterprise AI applications. Its Smart Summary feature produces cited summaries of articles, and Dow Jones does not describe it as producing risk scores. Dow Jones runs separate risk products in its Risk & Compliance business. Polecat scores every event on six factors and updates a Risk Index out of 100 for each client.

Which is better for due diligence research?

Factiva. Searching a deep, licensed archive of business journalism, newswires and trade publications, with a long-established taxonomy and precise search tools, is what it is built for. Polecat is designed to measure an organisation's own external exposure over time and against peers, not to serve as a general research archive for investigating third parties.

Which is better for a chief risk officer?

For measuring and projecting strategic external risk, Polecat. It produces a comparable Risk Index, calibrated to the client's own taxonomy and benchmarked against peers, with every score traced to source evidence and a 3 to 6 month projection. Factiva gives a risk team's analysts licensed material to research, but turning search results into a board-level risk view is left to those analysts.

How much do Polecat and Factiva cost?

Factiva does not publish its pricing; licences are quote-based, and corporate and government buyers contract with Dow Jones directly. Polecat publishes its entry point: a fixed-scope Risk Intelligence Audit at £25K, covering the risks moving fastest on your register, benchmarked against peers, with both delivery layers stood up in three weeks.

About Polecat

Polecat delivers Strategic External Intelligence: 20 years of measured, comparable evidence on the outside world, so risk leaders can see around corners.

The quickest way to judge it is to try the instant demo. Teams that want to see it on their own register can book the fixed-scope Risk Intelligence Audit, priced at £25K, which stands up both layers in three weeks and benchmarks the risks moving fastest against peers.

Related reading: The best risk intelligence platforms for CROs in 2026 and Top horizon scanning tools for risk teams in 2026.