About

AnonymousMedia watches public news feeds and anonymous reports, works out where each story is happening, and plots the activity on a live world map. Brighter, hotter areas have more — and more recent — stories.

How stories get a location

Feeds that publish coordinates (earthquakes, disaster alerts) are placed exactly. For everything else the server reads the headline and summary: wire datelines such as “KYIV, Ukraine (AP) —” first, then place names, picking the country with the most evidence and the most specific place inside it. A few unresolved phrases are looked up on OpenStreetMap's Nominatim. Each story shows how precise its location is; stories with no clear place stay in the feed but off the map.

Automatic placement is a best guess. A story about a meeting in Washington on the war in Ukraine will be placed in Washington.

Anonymous reports

Anyone can send a report without an account. We store the report and nothing about who sent it. If you'd like to edit it later, keep the claim code shown after sending, create an account, and claim it.

Credits

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; basemap © CARTO. Country outlines and place names from Natural Earth (public domain); country names and demonyms from mledoze/countries (ODbL). Geocoding fallback by OpenStreetMap Nominatim. Map library Leaflet; heat layer Leaflet.heat. Typeface B612 by Airbus, Intactile Design and ENAC (OFL).