Where we're building newsrooms
Live newsrooms#
Alaska News (opens in a new tab)
Alaska, statewide · alaskanews.com
Borough assemblies, school board sessions, public hearings and statewide politics, published daily.
Beyond Alaska, we run foundation sites. Each is a civic guide to a region we are studying for a future newsroom. It shows who governs there and when they meet. It shows where to watch, where to find agendas and minutes, and how to take part. Each site also says plainly that no journalism is happening there yet. Together they track 240 governing bodies, and pages are added most weekdays.
Foundation sites#
Central Appalachia News
Southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, and northeast Tennessee
Scorecard: 5 outlets, 220 articles scored
Scorecard · Coverage map · centralappalachia.news (opens in a new tab)
Eastern Washington News
Spokane, the Tri-Cities, Yakima, and the Palouse
Scorecard: 4 outlets, 160 articles scored
Scorecard · Coverage map · easternwashington.news (opens in a new tab)
Hawaii Islands News
The Hawaiian Islands, all four counties
Scorecard: 5 outlets, 269 articles scored
Scorecard · Coverage map · hawaiiislands.news (opens in a new tab)
Inland SoCal News
The Inland Empire: Riverside and San Bernardino counties
Scorecard: 5 outlets, 156 articles scored
Scorecard · Coverage map · inlandsocal.news (opens in a new tab)
Lehigh Valley PA News
Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, Pennsylvania
Scorecard: 4 outlets, 153 articles scored
Scorecard · Coverage map · lehighvalleypa.news (opens in a new tab)
The Long Island News
Nassau and Suffolk counties, New York
Scorecard: 3 outlets, 148 articles scored
Scorecard · Coverage map · thelongisland.news (opens in a new tab)
Ozarks News
Southwest Missouri: Springfield, Joplin, and Branson
Scorecard: 3 outlets, 127 articles scored
Central Valley News
California's Central Valley, Stockton to Bakersfield
Scorecard: checking which outlets we can measure
North Arkansas News
Northwest Arkansas: Bentonville, Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers
Scorecard: checking which outlets we can measure
Rio Grande Valley News
The Rio Grande Valley of south Texas
Scorecard: checking which outlets we can measure
How the markets compare#
In every market we measure, the middle of the tracked outlets shows no clear tilt, though each market's middle sits slightly left of center. Markets differ more on checking: the middle of Lehigh Valley's outlets scores 1.4 of 4, and Eastern Washington's scores 2.15.
How to read this: each dot is one market, placed at the middle of the outlets we track there, taken separately on each measure, so a dot need not match any one outlet. We track a handful of each region's largest outlets, not every outlet. Left to right is which way coverage tilts, zoomed to -0.75 to +0.75 of the full -3 to +3 scale. Between the dashed lines is no clear tilt, under 0.5 either way. Up is how often reporters check what officials say, from 0 to 4, zoomed to 1 to 2.5. The corner colors match each scorecard's market map. We cannot yet tell whether the slight lean left of center is in the outlets or in our panel of AI judges. Scoring started on different days: 2026-09-29, 2026-10-31, 2026-11-01. Tap a market, or move to it with Tab and press Enter, to see how far its outlets spread and to open its scorecard. Not yet measured: Central Valley, North Arkansas, Rio Grande Valley, Upstate NY.
Why build a site before a newsroom#
Two reasons. First, a guide to a region's local government is useful to residents on its own. Most of these bodies have never had their meeting schedules, agenda pages and rules for public comment collected in one place. Second, a newsroom's web address should start building a history before the first article. The foundation site and the newsroom are the same site at different stages. A meeting page that lists a body and its schedule today will hold a transcript later, at the same address.
These are experiments#
Eleven regions today, deliberately different in shape: a metro, a farm valley, an island state, a border region, a mountain plateau. Each is a hypothesis about where a community newsroom should exist, not an announcement that one will. As we learn, the list will change and grow into other markets.
The next one#
The next market does not have to come from our research. If your community has a hole where a newsroom should be, the strongest signal is someone local who wants to close it. Start a local news community shows how, and A Newsroom for Your Community covers what the platform provides.
Reach the reporting from an agent#
The newsrooms are open to AI agents as well as readers. Our agent skills give Claude or any other agent read-only access to a newsroom's articles, sources, meeting transcripts and events, starting with Alaska News. The skills are free to install, and the same skill reaches any newsroom the platform adds.