Plain-language guide to how the dashboard works. This page is meant for anyone curious about the app — not a technical manual.
See which industries matter most in your state and how today's news might be affecting them.
The app tries to answer three simple questions:
The map and side panels show two different things. They work together, but they are not the same number.
| Area | What's on screen | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Top — state picker + overall gauge | GDP, Jobs, and Inflation bars | Big-picture economy for the state (official stats + news blend) |
| Industry panel | Specialized sectors, health bars, underrepresented sectors | What this state is known for, plus how news may be stressing those sectors |
| News feed (below the map) | Headlines for your state | Story intensity on each card; industry health stays in the panel |
| What you see | What it means | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Overall gauge (top) | A quick read on how the state is doing overall | Government economic data + news signals |
| GDP / Jobs / Inflation bars | How this state compares to other states right now | US government sources (Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics) |
| Industry health bars | Stress on industries this state depends on | Census job patterns + news analysis |
| Specialization (LQ) | Which industries this region is especially built around | US Census business patterns |
| Impact on news cards | How loud or intense a group of related stories feels | Automated news analysis |
Important: The GDP bar shows year-over-year growth (not total GDP size in dollars, and not a single industry like manufacturing).
Layer 1 — We use standard US industry categories so states can be compared fairly.
Layer 2 — Census data shows which industries each state specializes in. This changes slowly (months, not hours).
Layer 3 — News is processed automatically. When a story looks harmful for a sector, that sector’s health can drop. Over quiet days, health drifts back up — it is not meant to stay stuck forever after one headline.
| Metric | Source | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| GDP | Bureau of Economic Analysis | Is the state’s economy growing compared to others? |
| Unemployment | Bureau of Labor Statistics | Are fewer or more people out of work than in other states? |
| Inflation | Bureau of Labor Statistics | Is the cost of living rising faster or slower? (Uses regional price data, not a perfect per-state number.) |
These are official statistics, updated on government schedules (monthly or quarterly). They lag real life a bit.
| Idea | Source | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| Specialization (LQ) | US Census | “This state has more than its fair share of jobs in this industry.” |
| Employment share | US Census | Roughly how many jobs sit in each sector. |
| Industry health | Our news pipeline | Not from Census — this moves when automated news analysis flags stress on a sector. |
Location Quotient (LQ) in simple terms: if a state has a high share of jobs in an industry compared to the US average, we call it specialized here. That is why the industry panel focuses on those sectors — they are the ones that matter most locally.
Everything on the dashboard traces back to one of these. Nothing is hand-entered.
| Source | What we take from it | Why we use it |
|---|---|---|
| Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) | State GDP and year-over-year GDP growth | The standard measure of whether a state's economy is growing or shrinking |
| Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) | State unemployment rates, plus a national baseline; regional consumer price data (inflation), plus a national baseline | Jobs and cost-of-living are the two numbers people feel most directly |
| US Census (County Business Patterns) | Employment counts by state and industry sector | The most reliable public picture of which industries actually employ people in each state — this powers specialization (LQ) and the industry panel |
| Source | What we take from it | Why we use it |
|---|---|---|
| GDELT (Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone) | A worldwide feed of news events with machine-coded signals: event type, an intensity scale, tone, source links, and how widely a story is mentioned | It gives structured, comparable signals across thousands of outlets — something raw headlines alone cannot provide |
| Curated RSS feeds (NBC, NPR, BBC, WIRED, IEEE Spectrum, The Fintech Times) | Headlines and article summaries pulled directly from each outlet | Fills gaps GDELT misses — especially technology, science, and finance coverage — from outlets we chose deliberately |
| Enrichment RSS feeds (the outlets above, plus Al Jazeera) | Titles and descriptions used to fill in missing details for articles we already have | Some article links arrive with no readable title; these feeds help us show something meaningful instead of a bare URL |
These do not add new data — they help interpret what the sources above provide:
mediabiasgroup/roberta-anno-lexical-ft) estimates lean and factual style on articles. It is a model's opinion of writing style, not a verdict on truth.To set expectations: the dashboard does not currently use BLS's detailed quarterly employment census (QCEW), BEA's per-industry GDP breakdowns, or GDELT's expanded knowledge graph. Industry-level detail comes from the Census employment data described above.
| Story intensity (news cards) | Industry health (panel) | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | How big or loud is this bundle of related stories right now? | How strained are this state's key industries right now? |
| How it behaves | Can spike when many outlets cover the same topic | Moves more slowly; can recover after things calm down |
| Where you see it | News feed and compare pages | Industry panel health bars |
Story intensity — Shown on news and compare pages. It combines how strong the automated “conflict/cooperation” signal is, how emotional the tone looks, and how many articles are in the cluster. Higher usually means more coverage and stronger signals — not “this is definitely true.”
Industry health — Shown as bars in the industry panel. Each specialized sector starts at a healthy baseline. Negative-leaning news can pull it down. The score is stored so it does not flicker on every page load. It is not a stock price, a jobs report, or official government data.
Overall gauge vs industry “Overall” — The number at the very top blends state-wide economic stats with industry health. The “Overall” line inside the industry panel is only about specialized sectors. They will not always match — that is intentional.
| Overall score | Label |
|---|---|
| Higher range | Stable |
| Middle range | At Risk |
| Lower range | Unstable |
These labels compare states to each other at the same time. They are not an official government index, a credit rating, or investment advice.
Some articles come from a global event database (GDELT). Others come from curated RSS feeds (major outlets). The dashboard shows where a metric came from so you know when a number is measured directly vs estimated from text. If we are not confident, we show — instead of guessing.
Use it to explore how regional industry structure and headlines might connect — especially if you care about policy, local economies, or how news gets summarized.
For formulas, edge cases, and technical details, see TECHNICAL-REFERENCE.md in the project repository (developer-oriented).
For legal terms and disclaimers, see Disclaimer, Terms, and Privacy.