Local Coverage Tracker
A newsroom dashboard for monitoring geographic coverage equity
Local newsrooms often need to actively work to make sure they are covering all of the communities in their geographic area. In this Knight Lab Studio project, we will develop a prototype of a web dashboard that visualizes on a map where a newsroom has reported—by ZIP code, neighborhood, or council district. Editors and reporters could filter by beat, reporter, or time period to identify “news holes,” over-reported areas, or blind spots in coverage. The tool would help prioritize story assignments, track beat equity, and justify coverage decisions to the public or funders. This project introduces students to data pipelines, map APIs, newsroom workflows, and local accountability, while also emphasizing equity in reporting access.
Faculty and Staff Leads
Project Details
2025 Fall
Important Questions
- What level of location granularity (ZIP, neighborhood, council district) is most actionable for newsroom planning?
- What’s the best lightweight pipeline to auto-ingest CMS metadata and geocode it for mapping?
- How do we avoid duplicative “ghost coverage” (e.g., press releases with multiple ZIPs but little original reporting)?
- Can we track quality of coverage, not just quantity?
- What safeguards ensure privacy if using unpublished internal drafts or metadata?
Sample Milestones
- Weeks 1-3: Needs assessment & user interviews / Metadata ingestion pipeline
- Weeks 3-5: Prototype maps, filters and equity scoring
- Weeks 6-8: User testing, iteration, more features
- Weeks 9-10: More testing, public-facing demo, and write-up
Outcome
By Week 10, students will deliver a working prototype of the Local Coverage Tracker. The final prototype will offer a practical, visual tool for tracking geographic coverage equity, helping newsrooms identify blind spots and make smarter decisions about where to report next. It will also serve as a foundation for expanding the tool in future semesters or newsroom collaborations.