Please note that this is a new service and the data-gathering process remains a work in progress, which we hope to refine and improve over time. Please consider this a "beta version." Whatever its merits (or demerits), we hope at least to make it clear and transparent how it has been put together. This way, users can decide its usefulness. Following are answers to some questions you may have about how the information has been compiled. We gladly welcome any questions or suggestions you may have:

How did you determine which are the worst humanitarian crises?

The short answer is we didn't. We have looked to well-respected organizations that rank the worst crises in various categories. For instance, for the worst conflicts, we looked to the Center for Systemic Peace in Maryland, which has catalogued perhaps the most comprehensive database of international conflicts since 1946. For the most repressive regimes, we relied on Freedom House in Washington, DC; for health crises, we turned to a list compiled by the Reuters Foundation; and for natural disasters, we looked to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Belgium.

Are there other lists you might have used?

Yes, in some cases. For conflicts, there are several other organizations that produce lists. If you compare them, there are not usually major differences among the lists. We hope we have picked the best, most comprehensive lists -- but if you know of a better one, please tell us!

Aren't there other types of humanitarian conflicts you are not yet covering?

Absolutely. So far, we have identified reliable lists for the worst conflicts, worst regimes, worst health crises, and worst natural disasters. If you know of lists for other types of humanitarian crises -- or better lists for the crises we already following  -- we welcome your input.

How do you count the number of stories published on each of these humanitarian crises? How objective or subjective is it?
 
The number counts result from inputting a keyword (such as "North Korea") into the search engines we use. However, we do tweak the numbers a little to eliminate "faulty" results. For example,

stories on a particular country -- but unrelated to the current crisis -- are excluded. For example, a story about new findings on the Vietnam War of 40 years ago would not be included in the story count for Vietnam as it does not pertain to that country's current status as one of the world's most repressive regimes.

Which news organizations are included in your survey?

Presently, we track about 100 news organizations around the world. In the U.S., this includes leading news gatherers, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS, FOX, MSNBC, CSPAN and CNBC. Overseas, we have sought to track similar news groups, for example, The Guardian in the UK or Le Monde in France, etc.

How reliable are these numbers?

This is the most important question of all. Our system automatically tracks and sorts stories coming from each news organization's RSS feeds. Then we have to manually scan the stories to eliminate "mistakes." It's not full proof. If you are aware of  errors, we welcome your corrections. We believe that, at the very least, the currently compiled numbers give a very good sense of the proportionality of news coverage -- in other words, showing which stories are highly covered and which are seldom covered.

What else should I know about these numbers?

Sometimes the same story is counted in two categories. For example, in the Natural Disasters section, stories concerning Hurricane Katrina are counted not only under "hurricanes" but also under "floods." Also, you will see that the same subject will appear on two different sections. For example, Sudan appears on both the "Worst Conflicts" and "Worst Regimes" lists.