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What the picker changes
  • Top topics digest — the cards score the selected period against the prior 4 weeks.
  • 12-week heatmap & outlet matrix — show the 12 weeks ending at the selected week (they slide back with the picker, they aren’t a fixed snapshot).
  • Per-topic volume / alias drift — same 12-week trailing window, anchored on the selected period.
  • Coverage gap quadrant — scores the selected period against the 12 weeks before it (not including it).
  • Anomaly cards — only show alerts the detector fired during the selected period. Quiet weeks legitimately show none.
What stays as-is
  • Outlet orientation strip / lean colours — context-only, drawn from the last 12 weeks of activity regardless.
  • Co-occurrence graph — recent-activity anchored, not picker-driven.
  • Source & topic profiles — all-time data for the topic; the picker doesn’t affect them.
Rolling 7 days is a sliding live window for “current vibes”; switch to Weekly to compare specific weeks side-by-side.
Week of 25 May 2026
This week
Topic

West Coast Ratepayers' Cost Pressures

8 items · 6 aliases · peaked week of 3 May 2026 · first seen 4 May 2026

The Taxpayers’ Union releases its 2026 Ratepayers’ Report highlighting rising costs, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and debt burdens across West Coast councils, calling for a rates cap to protect ratepayers.

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Alias drift

How this topic has been named, week by week. A new alias winning out is usually a framing shift.

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Sample framings

Up to 12 framings spread across orientations. Each framing is a short phrase the topic extractor generated to characterise the piece's stance — not a quote from the source. Click through to read the original.

unaffordable hikes already strained households

Waitaki rates stitch-up shows Watts must bring cap forward
7 May
OpenBrief Pro Watch this topic — get alerted when framing shifts, when an MP adopts new language, or when discourse and press diverge. OpenBrief Pro · NZ$20/mo. See OpenBrief Pro Sign up free

How the public reacted

Social-media signal on the same topic, drawn from the social lens. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies, the same weighting used across the digest cards. View on /social →

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