What MaineWhisper is

A member-supported news service for Bangor, Penobscot County and Maine that listens so you don't have to: the police and fire scanner, city government meetings, Maine news and the markets.

How it works

Software does the listening. A transcription model turns public-safety radio from all sixteen Maine counties into text as it airs. Another model summarizes city meetings from the public video and names the speakers against the official roster. A collector reads the public headlines of Maine outlets and drafts a short brief for each. One person reads and approves every item before it appears, and is responsible for it.

Sources and links

Every brief credits the outlet it came from, with one link at the bottom of the page. The link opens in a new tab after a short notice. We take only the headline and the outlet's own excerpt, never the article. Paywalled outlets are labeled. Scanner traffic is unverified initial dispatch: call natures change, addresses are sometimes misheard, and plenty of calls turn out to be nothing. Treat it as a lead, not a confirmed record.

Corrections

When we get something wrong we fix it on the page and say so here. Nothing to report yet.

The wall

Membership opens soon. Supporters who want their name here will have it here.