H-Town Ledger
Houston & Harris County, Texas · Monday, Oct 26, 2026
Houston's ledger: every tax dollar, vote, donor and deal. Schools first, just the facts.
 

How this works

H-Town Ledger is a fully automatic news site for Houston & Harris County, Texas. Every 15 minutes it collects headlines from free news feeds and government records, groups reports about the same event, waits until the event is confirmed, then has AI (Claude) write a fact sheet from the sources under fixed rules. Schools and school choice get the most attention, then the money: tax dollars, City Hall, Harris County, and the donors, developers and companies doing business with them.

The rules every fact sheet follows

  1. Houston and Harris County only. Stories that mention Houston only in passing are skipped. State and national stories run only when Houston, Harris County, its cities or its school districts are directly part of the story.
  2. Two outlets, or the original record. A news story waits for a second independent outlet. Sister sites with the same owner count once, and copies of the same article count once. The original record (a school district, college, city, county, sheriff or state agency publishing about itself) and a short list of trusted outlets publish on their own. If only one outlet has a story after a few hours, it's published with a Single source label, and the label comes off by itself when a second outlet confirms it.
  3. Every fact is cited to the numbered sources that state it. A fact with no source is removed automatically.
  4. Facts and claims are kept apart. What happened goes under "The facts". What people say, predict or allege goes under "Who said what".
  5. No guessing about money. Tax rates, fees, budgets, bonds and dollar figures appear only when a source states them, and the site checks that each figure actually appears in the source it cites. Otherwise the sheet says "None stated in sources."
  6. Disagreements are shown, not settled. Different numbers from different sources are both listed.
  7. Neutral wording. No judging words like "controversial" or "slammed".
  8. Skipped entirely: opinion pieces, ads, reviews, listicles, celebrity news, routine sports scores, and ceremonial items like proclamations and honor rolls.
  9. Duplicates are merged. A new report about an event that already has a sheet is folded into it, and the sheet is updated.

We read articles only to pull out the facts. We never republish anyone's article, and every fact sheet links to its sources.

Who leans where

Every news source on every fact sheet carries its AllSides Media Bias Rating (allsides.com): Left, Lean Left, Center, Lean Right or Right. Each Houston outlet was looked up on its own AllSides page in October 2026. An outlet AllSides hasn't rated says "Not rated"; it never borrows a rating from a parent network. Government records aren't news outlets and aren't rated.

OutletAllSides rating
Houston ChronicleCenter
Houston Public MediaCenter
KPRC 2 (Click2Houston)Center
ABC13 HoustonCenter
The Texas TribuneLean Left
The TexanLean Right
The Center SquareLean Right
Texas MonthlyCenter
KHOU 11Not rated
FOX 26 HoustonNot rated
Houston LandingNot rated
Community ImpactNot rated
Dolcefino MediaNot rated

Each fact sheet shows the count, like "Outlets: 2 center, 1 not rated". When every rated outlet on a story leans the same way, the sheet says so, and the story is listed in The Spin Bin. Political coverage is held to one rule: both sides get the same treatment, or nobody does.

Sources

Everything comes from free news feeds and public records. No paid subscriptions.

Feeds

Follow along in any reader, or build on the data.

Add section= (schools, money, cities, county, bightown, safety, elections, power, bayou, capitol), district=, money=1 or format=json to any feed address.

Put the latest fact sheets on your site

PTOs, neighborhood sites and local businesses can show the newest fact sheets with one line of code. Each headline links back here.

<script src="https://matthewcoley.site/htown/embed.js" data-section="schools" data-count="5" async></script>

Change data-section to any section, or use data-district="houston-isd" (or any district) for one district's news. data-count sets how many headlines (up to 10).

The app

Install it from your browser, no app store: on iPhone tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, Chrome or Edge, choose Install app. Stories you've opened still load offline.

Privacy

No tracking cookies and no Google Analytics. Your reading streak, read check marks and quiz answers live only in your own browser.

Your email stays with us

Full privacy notice