Coverage Score measures the breadth, pace, recency, and persistence of reporting associated with a top story during the five-day ranking window.

• Coverage Score ranges from 0 to 100 and is calculated only from articles and videos associated with the story inside the configured five-day lookback window.
• Velocity starts with (items in 1 hour x 8) + (items in 6 hours x 3) + items in 24 hours + (items in 72 hours x 0.2). These time buckets are cumulative, so very recent coverage receives the intended extra weight.
• Velocity, source diversity, and coverage volume are logarithmically scaled from 0 to 100 relative to the highest value among the stories being ranked for that day. Source diversity counts distinct publications, falling back to source domains when necessary.
• Freshness uses the newest matched item and declines with an 18-hour half-life. Persistence is the percentage of the five lookback days that contain at least one matched item.
• The final formula is 32% velocity + 24% source diversity + 18% coverage volume + 16% freshness + 10% persistence.
• A story BS Score uses 70% national importance and 30% Coverage Score. Coverage can therefore contribute at most 30 points to that 0-100 story BS Score.

Example: component values of 80 for velocity, 70 for source diversity, 60 for coverage volume, 50 for freshness, and 40 for persistence produce (80 x 0.32) + (70 x 0.24) + (60 x 0.18) + (50 x 0.16) + (40 x 0.10) = 65.2 Coverage Score.

Coverage Score measures reporting activity around a story. It does not measure manipulative language, article quality, factual accuracy, or public sentiment.