Why the Internet Archive is recording every minute of Philly TV news

The Internet Archive, the nearly two-decades-old San Francisco-based online library, is recording every minute of TV news in Philadelphia to create a searchable database of political media and ads, Nieman Journalism Lab reported. The hope is that it will become a resource for journalists and researchers who want to track how these types of media affect campaigns.

It’s the nonprofit’s first archiving project that focuses on one region, according to the Nieman Lab story, and the Internet Archive chose Philadelphia because of the region’s potentially competitive upcoming congressional elections. As part of the project, the Internet Archive will also record political ads on major broadcast stations in Philadelphia and collect relevant online media.

“Using text from closed captioning as well as metadata organized by volunteer viewers, the Philadelphia archive will be searchable by region, station, and date, as well as by campaign issue or ad sponsor,” Nieman Lab reported.

The archive doesn’t have anything in it yet, but you can find it here.