Editorial Standards

Our Editorial Mission

NewsByCounty is a news-aggregation and data-journalism site. Our job is to take the local news coverage and demographic data that already exist — current headlines from the GNews API, historical newspaper mentions from the Library of Congress, and Census Bureau statistics — and present them in a form that someone researching a county, planning a move, or tracking local trends can actually use. We are not a primary news publisher. We do not conduct original reporting, issue editorial endorsements, or publish opinion columns.

Every page on this site is grounded in a primary-source dataset from a U.S. government agency or a licensed news API. Where we compute composite scores or rank counties, we publish the underlying formula on our methodology page. Where we draw on AI assistance for prose, we say so on this page and on the page itself.

Who Writes and Edits This Site

NewsByCounty is published and edited by Evan Brooks, Data Editor. Evan designs the data pipeline, sets the methodology, reviews published prose for accuracy against the underlying data, and signs off on every methodology change. The data editor is not a professional journalist, and NewsByCounty does not present itself as a primary newsroom. The data editor's role is the data-editor role: ensure information on this site matches the source datasets, ensure prose stays inside what the data supports, and decline to publish anything that strays into unsourced claim territory.

Long-form features and reported pieces carry an explicit byline at the top of the article. The data editor reviews and signs off on every long-form piece. When a feature genuinely benefits from a domain co-reviewer, we name that contributor only when they are actually involved — we do not list speculative reviewer credentials.

Where Our Data Comes From

All county-level information on this site comes from primary sources. We do not republish data from third-party aggregators. Our active sources are:

• GNews API — a licensed news aggregation service that provides current headlines from thousands of local and national news sources. We use it to display the latest news stories mentioning each county.
• Library of Congress Chronicling America — the federal digital newspaper archive. We use it to surface historical newspaper mentions of each county, providing cultural and historical context.
• U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) — county-level demographic and economic data used for context and comparison.

Each source's URL, release date, and pull date are documented on the methodology page. Source datasets are in the public domain (federal works) or used under the API terms published by the provider.

How We Use AI

Per-county pages on this site include a short, AI-generated narrative summary that contextualizes the statistics for that county. The narrative is produced by Claude (Anthropic) from the same source data shown on the page. The data editor reviews the underlying prompt and spot-checks output before publication; the prompt is constrained to forbid unsourced claims, causation claims, and any prose that goes beyond what the source statistics support.

We do not use AI to:

• Generate news stories, headlines, or quotes.
• Invent statistics, sources, or citations.
• Write methodology, editorial standards, or correction notices.
• Generate cause-and-effect claims that aren't grounded in the source data.

When the underlying data is updated, narratives are regenerated to stay consistent. AI-generated prose is always paired with the source statistics so readers can verify the numbers themselves.

Corrections Policy

If you spot a factual error — a wrong statistic, a misattributed source, a broken citation, a mislabeled headline — email editorial@newsbycounty.com with the page URL and the specific issue. We aim to acknowledge every report within five business days and to publish a correction or update the page within ten business days for substantive issues.

Substantive corrections (changes to a statistic, methodology, or claim) are noted in a "Corrections" entry on the page itself with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently.

How NewsByCounty Is Funded

NewsByCounty is independently owned and operated. It is part of the ByCounty Network of data sites. Funding comes from two transparent sources:

• Display advertising served by Google AdSense and similar networks. Ad placements are clearly labeled and do not influence editorial decisions or which counties we feature.
• Affiliate links, currently limited to relevant service referrals. Affiliate links are labeled "Sponsored" and never determine which counties we feature on data pages.

We do not accept paid content, sponsored placements, or advertorials. No data source, advertiser, or affiliate has any influence over the methodology, rankings, or editorial choices on this site.

Update Cadence

News headlines are refreshed daily via the GNews API. Historical newspaper data from the Library of Congress is updated when new digitized issues are added. Census data is refreshed annually on the ACS release schedule. Narratives are regenerated when the underlying data for a county changes. The methodology page displays its own "Last reviewed" date and changelog. This editorial-standards page was last reviewed on May 17, 2026.