Michigan Radio’s new tool makes news buried in city council meetings easier to find
If you’ve ever had to cite or find information from a city council meeting, you know how frustrating it can be to find what you’re looking for. Lots of times meeting minutes aren’t uploaded until after they’re approved, which means waiting anywhere between a week and a month, depending on how frequently council meets. Watching video recordings or listening to your own audio recording to find what you’re looking for is time consuming. If you have to find things from multiple meetings, repeat the same tedious steps. But recently, journalists from Michigan Radio, the NPR station in the state, have been using a database they built in-house to better sift through public meetings. The database is called Minutes and it...