Sentiment & HeatMap

The number next to a card is tone of the headline and dek, not a score for whether the event is true, good, or important.

What is scored

Words in the headline plus the short summary we stored. One story, one number. The gauge on a section page is the min / max / average of the stories in that list on that load â€" not a site-wide mood and not “the truth today.”

How the number is made

Each word is looked up in an AFINN-style list (positive and negative integers). Those values are added. The result is the Affin_Score you see. Rebuilds when the scrape pipeline runs, about every four hours.

HeatMap colors

Green leans positive tone. Red leans negative tone. The mix is scaled to the high and low scores on that page so a −1 in a calm list can look as “hot” as a −8 in a rough list. Color is volume of wording in the hed, not volume of coverage and not source mix.

What it cannot do

• Sarcasm, irony, and coded language.
• Headlines written to game emotion.
• A finding of fact. Two desks on the same event can score +5 and −5. That is tone, not a referee.

Method questions: Contact. How rows get here: How we source.