Stable Channel Update for Desktop

The Chrome team is delighted to announce the promotion of Chrome 101 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux.This will roll out over the coming days/weeks.

Chrome 101.0.4951.41 for Windows,Mac and Linux contains a number of fixes and improvements -- a list of changes is available in the log. Watch out for upcoming Chrome and Chromium blog posts about new features and big efforts delivered in 101.



Security Fixes and Rewards

Note: Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix. We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven’t yet fixed.

This update includes 30 security fixes. Below, we highlight fixes that were contributed by external researchers. Please see the Chrome Security Page for more information.

[$10000][1313905] High CVE-2022-1477: Use after free in Vulkan. Reported by SeongHwan Park (SeHwa) on 2022-04-06

[$7000][1299261] High CVE-2022-1478: Use after free in SwiftShader. Reported by SeongHwan Park (SeHwa) on 2022-02-20

[$7000][1305190] High CVE-2022-1479: Use after free in ANGLE. Reported by Jeonghoon Shin of Theori on 2022-03-10

[$6000][1307223] High CVE-2022-1480: Use after free in Device API. Reported by @uwu7586 on 2022-03-17

[$5000][1302949] High CVE-2022-1481: Use after free in Sharing. Reported by Weipeng Jiang (@Krace) and Guang Gong of 360 Vulnerability Research Institute on 2022-03-04

[$NA][1304987] High CVE-2022-1482: Inappropriate implementation in WebGL. Reported by Christoph Diehl, Microsoft on 2022-03-10

[$NA][1314754] High CVE-2022-1483: Heap buffer overflow in WebGPU. Reported by Mark Brand of Google Project Zero on 2022-04-08

[$7500][1297429] Medium CVE-2022-1484: Heap buffer overflow in Web UI Settings. Reported by Chaoyuan Peng (@ret2happy) on 2022-02-15

[$7500][1299743] Medium CVE-2022-1485: Use after free in File System API. Reported by Anonymous on 2022-02-22

[$7500][1314616] Medium CVE-2022-1486: Type Confusion in V8. Reported by Brendon Tiszka on 2022-04-08

[$7000][1304368] Medium CVE-2022-1487: Use after free in Ozone. Reported by Sri on 2022-03-09

[$5000][1302959] Medium CVE-2022-1488: Inappropriate implementation in Extensions API. Reported by Thomas Beverley from Wavebox.io on 2022-03-04

[$2000][1300561] Medium CVE-2022-1489: Out of bounds memory access in UI Shelf. Reported by Khalil Zhani on 2022-02-25

[$2000][1301840] Medium CVE-2022-1490: Use after free in Browser Switcher. Reported by raven at KunLun lab on 2022-03-01

[$2000][1305706] Medium CVE-2022-1491: Use after free in Bookmarks. Reported by raven at KunLun lab on 2022-03-12

[$2000][1315040] Medium CVE-2022-1492: Insufficient data validation in Blink Editing. Reported by Michał Bentkowski of Securitum on 2022-04-11

[$1000][1275414] Medium CVE-2022-1493: Use after free in Dev Tools. Reported by Zhihua Yao of KunLun Lab on 2021-12-01

[$1000][1298122] Medium CVE-2022-1494: Insufficient data validation in Trusted Types. Reported by Masato Kinugawa on 2022-02-17

[$1000][1301180] Medium CVE-2022-1495: Incorrect security UI in Downloads. Reported by Umar Farooq on 2022-02-28

[$1000][1306391] Medium CVE-2022-1496: Use after free in File Manager. Reported by Zhiyi Zhang and Zhunki from Codesafe Team of Legendsec at Qi'anxin Group on 2022-03-15

[$NA][1264543] Medium CVE-2022-1497: Inappropriate implementation in Input. Reported by Abdulrahman Alqabandi, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2021-10-29

[$500][1297138] Low CVE-2022-1498: Inappropriate implementation in HTML Parser. Reported by SeungJu Oh (@real_as3617) on 2022-02-14

[$NA][1000408] Low CVE-2022-1499: Inappropriate implementation in WebAuthentication. Reported by Jun Kokatsu, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2019-09-04

[$TBD][1223475] Low CVE-2022-1500: Insufficient data validation in Dev Tools. Reported by Hoang Nguyen on 2021-06-25

[$NA][1293191] Low CVE-2022-1501: Inappropriate implementation in iframe. Reported by Oriol Brufau on 2022-02-02



We would also like to thank all security researchers that worked with us during the development cycle to prevent security bugs from ever reaching the stable channel.

As usual, our ongoing internal security work was responsible for a wide range of fixes:


[1320031] Various fixes from internal audits, fuzzing and other initiatives


Many of our security bugs are detected using AddressSanitizer, MemorySanitizer, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer, Control Flow Integrity, libFuzzer, or AFL.



Interested in switching release channels?  Find out how here. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.




Prudhvikumar Bommana
Google Chrome

Chrome for Android Update

Hi, everyone! We've just released Chrome 101 (101.0.4951.41) for Android: it'll become available on Google Play over the next few days.

This release includes stability and performance improvements. You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Erhu Akpobaro
Google Chrome

Chrome for Android Update

Hi, everyone! We've just released Chrome 101 (101.0.4951.41) for Android: it'll become available on Google Play over the next few days.

This release includes stability and performance improvements. You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Erhu Akpobaro
Google Chrome

You can now use Radio-Canada’s brand typeface: The award-winning variable font comes to Google Fonts

Radio Canada character set, 2 variable axes, 317 languages supported



A typeface made to give a specific identity and distinction to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Radio-Canada’s public broadcasting platforms is now available on Google Fonts in many languages using the Latin writing system, including many indigenous languages spoken in Canada. 

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster. Its mandate is to inform, enlighten, entertain, and strengthen Canadian culture and diversity on radio, television, and digital platforms. As part of this mandate, CBC/Radio-Canada is proud to release its original typeface publicly and make it available through Google Fonts.

The Radio-Canada typeface was created in 2017 by Montreal-based designer and typographer Charles Daoud, in collaboration with Coppers and Brasses and Alexandre Saumier Demers. 

The humanist style stands out with distinctive angles and subtle curves. In compliance with digital accessibility standards, the font’s x-height is intended to increase legibility, making it very effective when used in continuous text.


In 2018, the Radio-Canada typeface won three awards, in the Font Design category at Communication Arts Typography, Applied Arts Design Annual and at Grand Prix Grafika.

Several optimizations were made in 2021 thanks to Eli Heuer’s contributions. He expanded the static font into a variable font and increased the character set (490 to 679) and the number of supported Latin languages (106 to 317).  

In 2022, Jacques Le Bailly (Baron von Fonthausen), with the expertise of Aaron Bell, expanded the font to include support of indigenous languages used in Canada, such as Sechelt, Algonquin, Ojibway, Carrier, and Chipewyan (more languages to be released).

The Radio-Canada typeface is offered in two styles (Roman and Italic), two widths (Regular and Condensed), and five weights (Light to Bold); and as a variable font.

Posted by Susanna Zaraysky, Google Fonts Content Strategist

Voici Radio-Canada, la police de caractères du diffuseur public canadien, plusieurs fois primée et maintenant disponible sur Google Fonts

caractères typographiques de la police Radio-Canada, supportant deux axes variables et 317 langues.


Une police de caractères créée pour renforcer l’identité distinctive de CBC/Radio-Canada sur toutes les plateformes du diffuseur public est maintenant disponible sur Google Fonts dans plusieurs langues (dont les langues autochtones parlées au Canada) utilisant les caractères latins.

CBC/Radio-Canada est le diffuseur public du Canada. Son mandat est de renseigner, d'éclairer et de divertir, afin de renforcer la culture et la diversité canadienne à la radio, la télé et sur les plateformes numériques. À titre de diffuseur public, CBC/Radio-Canada est fier d’offrir publiquement sa police de caractères par le biais des polices de caractères Google.

De style humaniste, elle se démarque par ses angles et ses empattements distinctifs. Sa hauteur d’x assure une excellente lisibilité conformément aux normes d’accessibilité numérique, ce qui la rend très performante lorsqu’utilisée en texte continu.

La police Radio-Canada a été créée en 2017 par le designer et typographe montréalais Charles Daoud, en collaboration avec Coppers and Brasses et Alexandre Saumier Demers. Elle a été conçue spécifiquement pour CBC/Radio-Canada afin de répondre à ses besoins de diffusion de contenus, tant sur le numérique qu'à la télévision ou qu'en imprimé. 

En 2018, la police Radio-Canada a raflé trois distinctions, dans la catégorie Design de police de caractères aux Communication Arts Typography, Applied Arts Design Annual et Grand Prix Grafika.

Plusieurs optimisations ont vu le jour en 2021 grâce à la collaboration d’Eli Heuer. Il a développé la fonction variable de la police de caractères basée sur les deux familles statiques, augmentant au passage les glyphes originaux (de 490 à 679) et les langues latines (de 106 à 317). 

En 2022, Jacques Le Bailly (Baron von Fonthausen), avec l’expertise d’Aaron Bell, a optimisé la police afin de supporter les langues autochtones du Canada (dont Sechelt, Algonquin, Ojibwé, Carrier, Chipewyan et d’autres langues ajoutées en continu).

La police Radio-Canada est offerte en deux styles (Romain et Italique), deux largeurs (Regulier et Condensé), et cinq graisses (Léger à Gras) ainsi qu’en fonte variable.

Publié par Susanna Zaraysky, Google Fonts Content Strategist



10 fun facts to celebrate a decade of Drive

Engineer Darren Smith remembers the day that Google Drive launched in 2012. “We were all in a conference room, sort of like a war room,” he says. “We all cheered when the first user was live with Drive!" And just like that, Drive was...well, alive. (Fun fact: The team who launched it actually had “It exists” shirts made.)

  1. Drive was originally available via invite only when it was first rolling out. “We were all given tokens — sort of like digital passes — that we could share with family and friends,” says Darren. “It was really fun to see people finally using this thing we’d been working on for so long.”
  2. It’s hard to remember a time before you could save files from Gmail directly to Drive, but it was only a short while ago: Attachments in Gmail were introduced in 2013, saving us all from that agonizing experience of downloading file after file after file.
  3. You can store a lot in Google Drive — but maybe you don’t know how much. Ahem, a few numbers that may surprise you! You can store up to:
    • 1.02 million characters in a Google Doc
    • 10 million cells or 18,278 columns in a Google Sheet
    • 100 MB of data in a Google Slide presentation

Check out this Help Center article for more impressive storage stats.

4. The icon for Google Drive went through many, many iterations. Eventually, the team settled on the one we know and love — except it used to be rotated slightly differently so that it looked a little like a “D.” Eventually the team realized it looked too similar to the Google Play icon, so they rotated it . “Now it points up, sort of suggesting you’re uploading something to the cloud,” Drive Product Manager Scott Limbird says.

5. Accessibility is a major priority for Drive and all Google products — everyone should be able to use Drive, and get the most out of it. A huge step toward making this happen was the launch of screen reader compatibility in 2014, an update specifically designed for blind and low-vision users.

6. Google’s productivity expert Laura Mae Martin regularly shares her Drive tips with other Googlers — here’s a handy one for handling advanced images in Drive: In Drive, select New + and then Google Drawings (or type drawing.new into your browser!). From there, copy/paste, drag, upload or import your image file; then you can edit it, download it in any format and share the image like you would any other Drive file. Of course you can also use Google Drawings to make your own image entirely and import it into a Doc or Slide, or save it in various file formats.

Animated GIF showing how you can navigate to Google Drawings.

7. If you’re one of the many people with way too many things in your Drive, then search chips are your friend. We introduced this feature in February of this year, and it helps you find what you’re looking for based on what kind of file it is, who else is working on it with you…the list goes on and on.

8. Keeping users and their Drive content safe is important, which is why we’ve introduced features like suspicious file warnings, labels for sensitive files and more secure ways to share to broad audiences.

9. In 2017, we introduced Backup and Sync to make it easy for folks to control how their photos and files were backed up to Google services — and then in 2021, Drive for desktop replaced Backup and Sync, which made it even easier to access files from any device, anywhere. (Not to mention it made file and photo management simpler and faster!)

10. Darren says one of his favorite Drive memories actually happened outside the office. “When my daughter was getting married, her wedding planner was sharing all these files and folders with us,” he says. “And of course, she did that with Drive!”

Happy 10 years, Google Drive! You’re an excellent home for our Docs, Sheets, Slides…and everything else.

GDE community highlight: Nishu Goel

Posted by Monika Janota, Community Manager

Red graphic image shows woman holding microphone on stage next to some gears and the GDE logo

Nishu Goel is a renowned web engineer from India, Google Developer Expert for Angular and web technologies, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional. She’s the author of Step by Step Angular Routing (BPB, 2019) and A Hands-on Guide to Angular (Educative, 2021) as well as the author of Web Almanac 2021 JavaScript chapter. Nishu currently works at epilot GmbH as a full stack engineer. She told us about her community involvement, career plans and the best ways to learn web development.

Monika: Let’s start with your story. What inspired you to become a developer and take on an active role within dev communities?

Nishu: I got my bachelor’s degree in computer science, we studied data structures, and that’s where the interest in programming started. During the third year of engineering, a connection with the developer community was established through my participation in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Nationals competition where we presented solutions through code. The idea of the application we built was to bring educational opportunities to local students, especially girls. I met some very inspiring people, both contestants and organizers in this journey.

In 2018, my professional career took off, and I started working with Angular. Angular became the primary technology that connected me to the GDE program. Around the same time, I started writing blog posts and creating content around the subject I was working on and learning . Dhananjay Kumar helped me get started on this journey and ensured to keep me on track. My first articles tackled the basics of Angular. Soon after I started speaking at events-the first one being ngNepal, Nepal’s Angular Conference. This led to more speaking invitations about Angular and web technologies.

GDE Nishu Goel stands in the middle of the photo with 4 men on her left and 4 men on her right. They all look into the camera with half smiles

Monika: What’s your professional experience technology-wise?

Nishu: It was all about Angular and web components for the first two years. I was using Angular for building the web, but soon I decided to go beyond that and explore other fields. I didn’t want to limit myself in case I’d have to switch projects. That’s how I started creating web components in Angular to use in other frameworks.

The first thing I did was to create web components using Angular. I published it to npm and used it as a demo in a React project. I’ve discussed this during some of my talks and presentations later. My next job required using React and Typescript. Now, because I was working with React, I wasn’t just using one framework anymore, but the web in general. At that moment I learned a lot about the web, especially web performance. That’s when I had to start thinking about the Largest Contenful Paint (LCP) or First Contentful Paint (FCP), which means how much time it will take your application to load or what’s going to be the maximum time for the page to render. I have been working towards choosing best practices and an improved performance of the applications.

Because of this interest in web performance, I got involved in the Web Almanac and wrote the JavaScript chapter. Web Almanac is an annual report on the state of the web in general — it tells us how people are using different features. Last year 8.6 million websites were screened, the data was analyzed and presented in the report. The report includes statistics like the usage of the async and defer attributes in a <script> element. How many websites are using them correctly, how many are not using that at all, and how many improved those compared to 2020. The last Web Almanac report mentioned that around 35% of websites used two attributes on the same script, which was an anti-pattern, decreasing the performance. This was pointed out last year, and this year we tried to see if the situation improved. I also spoke at ngConf and Reliable Dev Summit, where I focused on the performance of the web.

Close up of the front of a book titled 2021 Web Almanac, HTTP Archive's Annual state of the web report

Monika: You’re also very much involved in giving back to the community. Lately you’ve been volunteering with a Ugandan NGO YIYA — how did it start and what was the main point of that cooperation?

Nishu: It started with the GDE team informing us about the volunteering opportunity with YIYA. The Ugandan NGO was looking for engineers to help them with either the content preparation or technical features. The program aims to empower school-aged children in Uganda and offer them education opportunities using the technologies available locally — not computers or textbooks, but rather basic keypad phones and radios. The children would dial a certain number and receive a set of information, dial another one for more insights, and so on. It became even more useful during the pandemic.

Since I’ve always been involved with the community and sustainable development goals, I decided to reach out. After a meeting with the YIYA team, I offered my help with the Python scripts or any bugs they came up with, any issues with the portal. We worked together for a brief amount of time.

Monika: What are your plans for 2022? Is there anything you’re focusing on in particular?

Nishu: I’m switching jobs and moving to another country. I’ll be working on the web in general, improving the site performance, and also on the backend, using Golang. I’ll continue to zero in on the web performance area since it’s very interesting and complex, and there’s a lot to understand and optimize. Even now, after dedicating a lot of my time to that, there’s still so much to learn. For example, I’d love to understand how using a CDN for my image resources would help me make my app even faster. I want to become THE expert of web performance — I’m gradually getting there, I like to believe :)

Monika: You’ve mentioned starting to write at a point when you were not an expert, you were just writing what you were learning. What would your advice be to new developers coming through and feeling they don’t have anything to share?

Nishu: That’s exactly how I felt when I started writing. I thought that maybe I should not put this out? Maybe it’s just wrong? I was worried my writing was not going to help the readers. But the important thing was that my writing was helping me. I would forget things after some time and then come back to something I wrote earlier. Writing things down is a great idea.

Close up of the front of a book titled Step-by-step Angular Routing, authored by Nishu Goel

So I would suggest everyone — just write, at whatever stage. Even if you’ve only finished one part of a course you’re going through — you’re learning by writing it down. A piece of information that you got to know at some point may be useful to others who don’t know that yet. You don’t need to be an expert. Writing will help you. And anyone, at any stage of their career.

Monika: It’s best to follow people who just learned something because they know all the things they had to figure out. Once you’re an expert, it’s hard to remember what it was like when you were new. And any advice for someone who’s just getting into web development?

Nishu: Many people ask which framework they should choose when they’re starting, but I think that’s not the right question. Whatever we are learning at any point should be useful at a later stage as well. I would advise anyone to drop the limitations and start with HTML or JavaScript — that’s going to be profitable in the future.

And then take any opportunity that comes your way. This happened to me when I stumbled upon information about the Web Almanac looking for authors. I just thought, “oh, this is interesting, this may help everyone with the performance side of things”. That’s how I became a content lead for the JavaScript chapter, and I’ve spent six months writing it. So I think it’s just about grabbing the opportunities and working hard.

Monika: Do you have any predictions or ideas about the future of web technology in general? What’s going to be the next hot topic? What’s going to be growing fast?

Nishu: I love the fact that we’re able to run servers within browsers now, this is a great advancement. For example, running Node.js from the browser has been introduced lately, meanwhile in the past we could not run anything without having Node.js installed in our systems. Now we can do anything from the browser. This is a huge step further in the web ecosystem. And the OMT — Off the Main Thread. Working on the threads is going to be much improved as well. Web Assembly is advancing and enables developers to do that, and I think that is the future of the web ecosystem.

The Beta for Android 13 is out now: Android 13 Beta 1

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Android13 Logo

It’s already April and we’ve been making steady progress refining the features and stability of Android 13, building around our core themes of privacy and security, developer productivity, as well as tablet and large screen support. Today we’re moving into the next phase of our cycle and releasing the first Beta of Android 13.

For developers, there’s a lot to explore in Android 13, from privacy features like the new notification permission and photo picker, to APIs that help you build great experiences, like themed app icons, quick settings tile placement, and per-app language support, as well as capabilities like Bluetooth LE audio and MIDI 2.0 over USB. In Beta 1, we’ve added new permissions for more granular access to media files, improved audio routing APIs, and more. We’ll have more to share at Google I/O, coming up on May 11-12, so please save the date!

We’re inviting you to give Beta 1 a try as we welcome more early adopters to give us feedback on this release. You can try Android 13 Beta 1 today on supported Pixel devices by enrolling here to get the update over-the-air. If you’re already running a developer preview of Android 13, your device will automatically get this and future updates over the air. As always, downloads for Pixel and the Android Emulator are also available. Visit the Android 13 developer site for details on how to get started developing and testing your app.


What’s new in Beta 1?

We’re continuing to focus on privacy and security, while giving you new APIs to help you build great experiences for your users. Beta 1 includes the latest updates to features we announced earlier, like the new notification permission, photo picker, themed app icons, improved localization and language support, and more. Beta 1 also introduces a small number of new features, so give these a try and let us know what you think!

More granular permissions for media file access - Previously, when an app wanted to read shared media files in local storage, it needed to request the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission, which gave access to all types of media files. To bring more transparency and control to users, we’re introducing a new set of permissions with more granular scope for accessing shared media files.

With the new permissions, apps now request access to a specific type of file in shared storage:

Allow My App to access music and other audio files on this device

When the permissions are granted by the user, apps will have read access to the respective media file types. To simplify the experience for users, If an app requests READ_MEDIA_IMAGE and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO at the same time, the system displays a single dialog for granting both permissions. If your app accesses shared media files, you’ll need to migrate to the new permissions when your app targets Android 13. More here.

Better error reporting in Keystore and KeyMint - For apps that generate keys, Keystore and KeyMint now provide more detailed and accurate error indicators. We’ve added an exception class hierarchy under java.security.ProviderException, with Android-specific exceptions that include Keystore/KeyMint error codes, and whether the error is retryable. You can also modify the methods for key generation, signing, and encryption to throw the new exceptions. The improved error reporting should now give you what you need to retry key generation.

Anticipatory audio routing - To help media apps identify how their audio is going to be routed, we’ve added new audio route APIs in the AudioManager class. The new getAudioDevicesForAttributes() API allows you to retrieve a list of devices that may be used to play the specified audio, and we added the getDirectProfilesForAttributes() API to help you understand whether your audio stream can be played directly. Use these new APIs to determine the best AudioFormat to use for your audio track.

App compatibility

If you haven’t tested your app for compatibility with Android 13 yet, now is the time to do it! With Android 13 now in Beta, we’re opening up access to early-adopter users as well as developers. This means that in the weeks ahead, you can expect more users to be trying your app on Android 13 and raising any issues that they find.

To test for compatibility, install your published app from Google Play or other source on a device or emulator running Android 13 Beta and work through all of the app’s flows. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. After you’ve resolved any issues, publish an update as soon as possible.

Timeline

With Beta we’re getting closer to Platform Stability in June 2022. Starting then, app-facing system behaviors, SDK/NDK APIs, and non-SDK lists will be finalized. At that time, you should finish up your final compatibility testing and release a fully compatible version of your app, SDK, or library. More on the timeline for developers is here.


Get started with Android 13!

Today’s Beta release has everything you need to try the Android 13 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Just enroll any supported Pixel device here to get this and future Android 13 Beta and feature drop Beta updates over-the-air. If you’ve already installed a developer preview build, you’ll automatically get these updates. To get started developing, set up the SDK.

For even broader testing on supported devices, try Android 13 Beta on Android GSI images, and if you don’t have a device you can test on the Android Emulator -- just download the latest emulator system images via the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

For complete details on how to get the Beta, visit the Android 13 developer site.

Enhanced menus in Google Docs improves findability of key features on desktop

What’s changing 

We’re updating the menus in Google Docs to make it easier to locate the most commonly-used features. In this update you’ll notice: 

  • Shortened menus for better navigation 
  • Reorganization for more intuitive feature location 
  • Prominent icons for faster recognition 


Enhanced menu




Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it’s important 

The new design improves findability of key features, making it quicker and easier to use Docs. Note that existing functionality isn't changing with this launch. 

For features that have been reorganized, we hope that their new menu location will be more intuitive and make it easier and faster to navigate the product. In particular, Apps Script-related functionality is now grouped under the new “Extensions” menu. This includes access to the Apps Script IDE as well as management of add-ons. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be available by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Google Docs 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

 Resources 

How data drives a hyperlocal news strategy in Los Angeles

Editor’s Note from Ludovic Blecher, Head of Google News Initiative Innovation: The GNI Innovation Challengeprogram is designed to stimulate forward-thinking ideas for the news industry. The story below by Gabriel Kahn, professor at USC Annenberg School of Journalism, is part of an innovator seriessharing inspiring stories and lessons from funded projects.

The Crosstown team of 10 represented by a cartoon line up which includes their names.

One year ago, our team at the University of Southern California started the Crosstown Neighborhood Data Project. Rapidly expanding news deserts - areas that receive no regular news coverage - can be seen across the US. Small town newspapers are drying up, and toxic “pink-slime” pseudo journalism is seeping in. These news deserts are growing even in big cities. Los Angeles has lost four local papers recently, and so many neighborhoods are overlooked by the news outlets that remain. That is why we started covering every corner of Los Angeles with a four-person editorial team.

It sounds impossible, but it’s not. Here’s how we did it, and what we learned. 

Each week, Crosstown sends out 110 unique email newsletters, one for each neighborhood in this city of four million. The newsletter features brief news stories that hit people where they live: charts and graphics on the number of new COVID infections and vaccination rates, plus pieces about housing, crime and traffic in each neighborhood. 

How do we do this? Through data. We’ve been collecting a trove of information on how Los Angeles lives, works and gets around. All this data is free, but much of it is hard to read and is stored on clunky local government websites. We scrape the data and organize it by neighborhood. That way we can quickly tell how many homes were burglarized in Hollywood last month, or figure out the neighborhood where the most new buildings are going up.

We then write one template for our newsletter, and our custom-built software creates 110 different versions, each with the proper data, visualizations and context for that neighborhood. This wasn’t easy. Our software engineering team spent a year building it, funded by the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge. We’ve now sent out more than 60 sets of weekly newsletters and learned a great deal. 

Increased engagement

Our biggest takeaway is that people truly engage with news when it’s about their neighborhood. The open rates on our newsletter are over 70%. Most weeks they exceed 80%. The lowest we ever recorded was 55%. This compares to the industry standard for news-related newsletter opening rates (22% according to MailChimp or just under 24% according to CampaignMonitor).

Why? People can’t get this news anywhere else. No other news organizations deliver this level of hyper-localized data. Second, it’s news people want. Currently, there is a widespread impression that Los Angeles is in the midst of a crime wave. Giving people verified stats about their neighborhood and explaining the broader context, such as whether a particular type of crime is rising or falling and how their area compares to others in the city, is a vital public service. 

One example of this is that in one of our newsletters we included the number of building demolitions that had taken place in each neighborhood. A reader then had hard data for her Hollywood neighborhood, which she took to city planners and made a public testimony to convey endangered and historic sites.

Our newsletter also hits the inbox with an appealing subject line, such as “Omicron’s impact on Koreatown,” or, “How much illegal dumping is happening in Venice?” When you live in a big city, it can be difficult to get a read on your own neighborhood. A weekly email with some basic information can be invaluable. 

We’ve found it’s also a great way to engage the audience. Some neighborhoods are battling pressing issues such as traffic congestion or rapidly rising rents. When we cover that in a story, they write back wanting to know more. This allows us to figure out who cares about what across an entire city. In the year since we launched, traffic to the website has increased by 30%.

More importantly, we have a tenfold increase in our audience reaching back out to us. We now know what neighborhoods these audience members live in, because they respond to us directly from their neighborhood email account. This helps us understand which issues are most important to people in different parts of the city.

We’re only at the beginning of understanding what kind of hyperlocal stories we can tell. But our goals for this year lie beyond Los Angeles. We’re now piloting our project with three other newsrooms and we’re hoping to find even more that want to try this technology and approach. We believe using data in this way can be a powerful tool to help newsrooms reach and engage new audiences without raising costs.