The guys at Central District News have a new feature that — like CNN’s abusive use of “breaking” “news” “alerts” — will freak you the fuck out. CDN’s new crime report scanner entries track the latest East Precinct activity captured by a police scanner. The entries are also plotted on this map (we call it the Bad News Map) so you can see where the action is. The result is the overwhelming sense that the world — especially the street just outside your (hopefully locked) door — is a really dangerous place and you should arm yourself immediately.

Not here to bash CDN for this — my favorite thing to read in the tiny daily I grew up with was the mostly ridiculous police blotter so I understand the entertainment value. There is also the value in having a place for people to get some more information on things they may have seen or heard about and, hopefully, giving them a place to talk about it. There is also value in acknowledging a problem and documenting it in a way that reaches the most people.

Here, instead, to offer balance. We plan to incorporate CDN’s new crime map in our site because it has value. But we want to balance the freak out factor with a new map of our own. Introducing the CHS Good News Map

View Good News Map in a larger mapPlease join us in updating it from time to time with your good news. We don’t have to keep up with the tide of narcotics arrests, burglary and assaults. But we should also keep track of the good stuff.