Who says a local story has to happen locally?
The Knight Lab has released the first generation of Local Angle, an application that helps content curators and consumers discover articles that may be of local interest even if they don’t originate locally. The application associates articles with information such as a newsmaker’s birthplace or a company’s headquarters city.
The goal is to spot content from around the web that may be of particular interest to a city or town no matter if it happens somewhere else.
In this initial iteration, the application uses Google News to scoop up current news stories, AlchemyAPI to identify the people mentioned in each story, and DBpedia to identify a geographical tie.
Our plan is to expose this beta version to editors, reporters and bloggers who might be interested in using Local Angle to generate story ideas. We’re seeking feedback on how we might apply these techniques to make national stories more locally relevant.
Got an idea on how we might further develop this concept for content publishers or consumers? Let us know at knightlab@northwestern.edu.
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