Needle News

Needle News is a search engine for exploring local news and discovering stories happening around you. We collect stories from a variety of sources and display them on a map.

Using the same technology as search engines, we collect stories from local news providers, and process them with artificial intelligence to place them in their most relevant locations. Stories are placed on the map with the following hierarchy:

• If a story mentions a specific place, we try to place it there.
• If we can't place it there, or if it only mentions a city, we place it randomly within the city boundaries.
• If the story mentions a larger area, or a country, we try to place it randomly within that country's bounds.

Note: AI makes mistakes, and stories can be placed in the wrong location. Just because a story is on a map in a given location doesn't mean that story has anything to do with that location.

Our goal is to help people rediscover the value of local news and geographic context. In a world where we're increasingly disconnected from our physical communities, Needle aims to foster connection through information.

Some things we like:

• News from rural communities is generally more visible, as a consequence of there being generally less news from these places.

This isn't about replacing traditional news, it's about providing a new way to discover stories. We encourage you to click through to the original source to see the full story.

We're always looking to add more news sources to provide better coverage across different regions. If you know of a news source that should be included on our map, please email us at info@radicalsloth.com with:

• The news organization's name
• Website URL
• Geographic area they cover
• RSS feed or sitemap URL (if available)
• Any other relevant information

Similarly, if you represent a news organization and would like your content removed from our map, please email us at info@radicalsloth.com with your request and we'll process it as soon as possible.