Track story leads
Get a daily list of news and filings on your beats.
Editorial · Media and publishing · On a schedule · Updated
Works with
- Slack
SlackHow do you track story leads on your beat?
To track story leads on your beat, tell Maito which topics and sources to watch and when. Each morning it checks news, agendas and filings, skips what you've already seen, and posts the new items with links in your channel. It also flags items that are easy to miss, like a filing buried in an agenda PDF.
How it's done today
Reporters check many sources by hand.
What Maito does
- Check sources on your beats
- Keep what's new
- Post a list with links
Example
Loop run: Tuesday 7:00 AM · Housing beat scan
6 new items on housing • Zoning proposal filed Monday: Case Z-26-114 would allow 5-story buildings on 14 blocks of Harbor Avenue. • Permit filing: Brightline Homes, 212 units on Mill Road, $41M. • Planning board agenda for Thursday adds a vote on the Harbor proposal. • Tenant union press release: rally planned at city hall Oct 22. • County report: 1,940 evictions filed through Sept, up 9%. • Op-ed in the Ledger calling for rent stabilization. Catch: the zoning proposal was filed under a case number but not listed on the planning board's main page. You'll only find it in the agenda PDF, page 6. Sources: planning board site, county records, local news.
@Maito Good find. Pull the case file and who owns the Harbor Avenue parcels.
The filing is on the city site. Three parcels are owned by Harbor Holdings LLC, the rest are private. Attached: z-26-114-summary.pdf.
Maito (7:00 AM):
6 new items on housing
• Zoning proposal filed Monday: Case Z-26-114 would allow 5-story buildings on 14 blocks of Harbor Avenue.
• Permit filing: Brightline Homes, 212 units on Mill Road, $41M.
• Planning board agenda for Thursday adds a vote on the Harbor proposal.
• Tenant union press release: rally planned at city hall Oct 22.
• County report: 1,940 evictions filed through Sept, up 9%.
• Op-ed in the Ledger calling for rent stabilization.
Catch: the zoning proposal was filed under a case number but not listed on the planning board's main page. You'll only find it in the agenda PDF, page 6.
Sources: planning board site, county records, local news.
Wen (7:12 AM):
Good find. Pull the case file and who owns the Harbor Avenue parcels.
Maito (7:20 AM):
The filing is on the city site. Three parcels are owned by Harbor Holdings LLC, the rest are private. Attached: z-26-114-summary.pdf.
How to set it up
- Ask your agent
“Every weekday at 7, check news, council agendas and permit filings on local housing and post anything new in #housing-beat with links.”
What it won't do
It only finds what is public and what you point it at. It can't read sources behind a paywall unless you give it a login in the Vault.
Questions
Yes. You name the sources, and Maito checks public pages, agendas and filings on the web along with news. It lists where each item came from.
No. Maito remembers what it posted and only lists new items each day. You can ask it to pull more detail on any one, such as the case file.
Yes. It runs as a Loop, so you pick the days and the time, and change them any time in the Slack thread.
