Data Methodology & Editorial Standards

Data Sources

NewsByCounty aggregates data from two primary sources: the GNews API for current news headlines, and the Library of Congress Chronicling America archive for historical newspaper mentions. Census demographic data is sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates (2019–2023) to provide county context.

Current News Coverage

We use the GNews API to fetch the latest headlines mentioning each county. Headlines are filtered by county name and state to ensure relevance. Coverage is refreshed daily. Not all counties have current news coverage at all times — availability depends on whether the county is mentioned in recent articles from GNews's source index.

Historical Newspaper Mentions

Historical mentions come from the Library of Congress Chronicling America digital newspaper collection. We query the API for each county name and surface notable historical articles. Coverage depth varies by county based on digitization progress and historical newspaper availability.

Content Displayed

Each county page on NewsByCounty presents the following:

• Latest News Headlines — Current news stories mentioning the county, sourced from the GNews API.
• Historical Newspaper Mentions — Notable articles from the Library of Congress Chronicling America archive.
• Census Demographic Context — Population and basic demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau ACS for county context.

How Content Is Aggregated

News headlines are fetched via the GNews API using county name + state as search terms. Results are filtered to the most relevant headlines and displayed with source attribution and direct links to the original articles.

Historical mentions are queried against the Library of Congress Chronicling America API. We search for each county name across digitized newspaper pages and surface notable matches with publication dates and source newspapers.

Census demographic context is displayed directly from ACS estimates without transformation. All figures should be treated as estimates, not exact measurements. Census data is subject to sampling margins of error, particularly in smaller counties.

Geographic Coverage

NewsByCounty covers 3,100+ counties and county-equivalents across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This includes counties, parishes (Louisiana), boroughs (Alaska), and independent cities (Virginia). News coverage availability varies by county based on media attention and digitization progress.

Data Freshness

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 demographic data is refreshed annually on the ACS release schedule.

Because news coverage depends on real-time media publication, some counties may have more headlines on some days than others. Historical coverage depth varies based on the Library of Congress digitization progress for each region.

AI-Generated Content

Some descriptive text on NewsByCounty — including county narrative summaries, comparative descriptions, and editorial articles — is generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence (Claude by Anthropic). All AI-generated content is reviewed for accuracy and grounded in the underlying news and Census data.

The raw news headlines, historical mentions, and Census demographic data displayed on this site are sourced directly from GNews API, Library of Congress Chronicling America, and U.S. Census Bureau datasets and are not AI-generated. AI assistance is used only for prose descriptions and contextual commentary.

Limitations and Disclaimers

• All data is informational only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or real estate advice.
• ACS estimates are subject to margins of error, especially in low-population counties.
• News aggregation depends on third-party APIs and search indexes. Coverage gaps or delays may occur due to API availability or source index limitations.
• We encourage users to verify important decisions with local data sources, real estate professionals, and financial advisors.

Questions or Corrections

If you have questions about our methodology or notice a data discrepancy, please contact us. We welcome feedback and data correction requests.