How the 518 News tab is made
15 sources feed this tab, 15 of them answering at the last check. The Google News searches below find Capital Region stories from outlets that do not publish a feed of their own; every result still has to pass the same rules.
Sources
- Adirondack Explorer (statewide)
- City & State NY (statewide)
- Google News: a Google News search for ("Albany, NY" OR "Albany NY" OR Schenectady OR "Troy, NY" OR "Troy NY" OR "Saratoga Springs" OR "Glens Falls" OR "Capital Region") -football -soccer -basketball -hockey -baseball -obituary when:2d
- Google News: a Google News search for ("Clifton Park" OR "Ballston Spa" OR Colonie OR Cohoes OR Guilderland OR Niskayuna OR "Saratoga County" OR Queensbury OR "Lake George" OR "East Greenbush" OR Watervliet OR Halfmoon OR "Rensselaer County" OR "Albany County" OR "Schenectady County" OR "Warren County, NY") -football -soccer -basketball -hockey -baseball -obituary when:2d
- New York Focus (statewide)
- NEWS10 ABC
- NEWS10 ABC
- Saratoga Living
- Saratoga TODAY
- Spectrum News 1
- The Chronicle (Glens Falls)
- The Daily Gazette: a Google News search for site:dailygazette.com (Schenectady OR Saratoga OR Niskayuna OR Glenville OR Rotterdam OR Scotia OR "Clifton Park" OR Amsterdam OR Albany OR "Capital Region" OR "Ballston Spa") when:1d
- Times Union: a Google News search for site:timesunion.com (Albany OR Schenectady OR Troy OR Saratoga OR Colonie OR "Capital Region" OR "Clifton Park" OR Rensselaer OR "Glens Falls" OR Guilderland OR Bethlehem) when:1d
- WAMC
- WNYT
Rules this tab follows
- Every headline links to the publisher. The page shows the headline, a line or two from the publisher's own feed and a small picture when the feed has one. Nothing else is copied.
- The feeds are checked every hour, on the hour. A story drops off 36 hours after it was published.
- Sources are center or left leaning and free to read, apart from the Times Union and The Daily Gazette, which are marked paywall. Press release wires, sports sites and look-alike towns (the other Albanys and Troys) are blocked.
- No sports, no obituaries, no murders, arrests or crime reports, and nothing about sexual crimes, on any tab.
- A story has to name a Capital Region place, institution or person (any town from Albany to Glens Falls, the counties, the colleges, the hospitals, the arenas, local stores and our representatives), unless it comes from an outlet that is itself local, such as Saratoga TODAY or TroyNY.gov. The TV and radio stations also carry statewide and national stories, and those stay off this tab.
- A story that names somewhere else (Syracuse, New Paltz, another state, another country) with no Capital Region place in its headline is dropped.
- A longer crime list applies here: no shootings, stabbings, arrests, charges, sentencings, police chases, standoffs or overdoses.
- Happy stories (openings, fundraisers, awards, rescues, festivals, scholarships) get a small lift. Statewide stories are capped at about 5, and paywalled stories at 6.
- When several outlets carry the same story it shows once, with the others listed under "Also". A story already on an earlier tab (World first, then USA, then 518 News, then the extra tabs) does not repeat on a later one.
- Newest first, with a lift for stories many outlets cover. No single source may take more than 7 spots in a row (2 for magazines and one-person newsletters), so one outlet never crowds the top.
- Stories about Donald Trump are held to about 1 in 10 unless you change that in Settings.
- The admin can remove a story, or add one by hand; a hand-added story sits at the top of its tab for 48 hours. Nothing here is written or rewritten by the site.
What you can change
- How many stories you see (30, 50 or up to 100), how many Trump stories, whether paywalled papers show, pictures on or off, and words that hide a story: all in Settings.
- Text size, compact mode, light or dark, and the order of the boxes on the front page, also in Settings.
- 🔖 Read later under any story keeps it on your own page until you delete it.
- Not in the 518? Settings has a switch that hides 518 News, 518 Events and the weather box.
- An account is optional and asks only for a name and a password; it carries your settings, your Read later list and your thumbs up to every device.
The whole picture is on How we get this data. Every source on the site is listed on About and sources.