From simple points on a map, to adding filters, to incorporating census data about communities alongside community coverage. — In the fall of 2019, folks from the Brown Institute and Lenfest Local Lab came together to explore our shared questions about the relationship between geography, quality and experience in local news. …

To help spur and support ongoing local news innovation, we are breaking down the ideas, goals and outcomes from each of our projects, sharing years’ worth of in-depth data and insights. — In this post, and as we sunset the Lenfest Local Lab @ The Inquirer, we’re continuing our team’s commitment to openness and transparency in innovation work. …

Thank you to everyone who supported our work since 2018, including our collaborators, colleagues, funders and community partners. Also, stay tuned for wrap-up posts! —

Seeing the locations mentioned in your news stories on a map provides strong signals about the communities and topics you prioritize. — Editor’s Note: This post was co-written and edited by Sarah Schmalbach, Director of the Lenfest Local Lab @ The Inquirer; Ana Méndez, Special Projects Editor at The Lenfest Local Lab; Faye Teng, former UX Designer at The Lenfest Local Lab; and Michael Krisch, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute.

By embedding within the organization, the Lab will explore how experimentation and innovation can be operationalized and will share what they learn. — Editor’s note: This post was co-written and edited by Sarah Schmalbach, Product Director of the Lenfest Local Lab @ The Inquirer and Matt Boggie, Chief Product and Technology Officer at The Inquirer. We are glad to share that after two and a half years as a standalone team collaborating with…

Our collaborative project won the Google GNI Innovation Challenge, securing $300,000 to build and test machine learning-based tools that help newsrooms analyze equity and representation in their work at scale. — Editor’s note: This post was co-written and edited by Michael Krisch, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute; Sarah Schmalbach, Product Director of the Lenfest Local Lab and Ana Graciela Méndez, Special Projects Editor for the Lab.

Leveraging breakthroughs in NLP and machine learning, the Lenfest Lab and Brown Institute built an analysis tool that maps locations found in local news stories. — Editor’s note: This post was co-written and edited by Michael Krisch, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute; Sarah Schmalbach, Product Director of the Lenfest Local Lab & Sarang Gupta, data science student at Columbia University and Ajay Chainani, engineer in the Lenfest Local Lab.

Major advances in computation have made mapping local news easier. What can we learn from analyzing where stories fall on a map? — Editor’s note: This post was co-written by Michael Krisch, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute and Sarah Schmalbach, Product Director for the Lenfest Local Lab. Last fall the Brown Institute and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism’s Lenfest Local Lab came together to try to answer some shared questions about the…

A one-year post to oversee a hyperlocal newsletter collaboration with The Philadelphia Inquirer. — The Lenfest Local Lab is looking for a community-focused email newsletter editor to oversee a series of exciting neighborhood newsletter pilot projects in collaboration with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2020. The project is supported by a Google News Initiative grant for experimentation with new hyperlocal news products that embrace the…