What could I use to solve this problem?

I have access to survey data at work that contains a verbatim field (comments) by survey takers. I would like to analyse these comments and pull the following information; 1. any positive or negative comments. 2. if any specific individual (employee) was named. 3. group comment by department. Comment may not contain reference to all 3.

I can code in python, have a basic understanding of statistics, and I am motivated because otherwise I have to read through these and group them by hand on a weekly basis.