The Journalist's Guide to Covering Massachusetts Government with InstaTrac

Covering Massachusetts government is no small task. With over 10,000 bills filed every two-year legislative session, a $61+ billion annual budget process, and local government meetings happening in every corner of the Commonwealth — the volume of information journalists must navigate is staggering.

That's exactly where InstaTrac's suite of tools comes in. InstaTrac's two platforms — MassTrac and MassInsider — are powerful for journalists who cover Beacon Hill, City Hall, and everything in between.

Start Your Day Informed: MassInsider

Before you open your notebook or fire up your recorder, you need to know what's happening. 

MassInsider is InstaTrac's daily newsletter, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. It aggregates political news from Massachusetts-based publications, legacy media outlets, new media sources, and podcasts— all curated into a single briefing.

Whether you're a statehouse reporter or a local beat journalist keeping tabs on state-level developments that affect your community, MassInsider helps you show up to every interview and press conference already up to speed.

Best of all, it's completely free. If you’re interested in being featured, send an email to info@instatrac.com.

Track Every Bill in Real Time: MassTrac

For journalists who regularly cover the legislature, MassTrac is the most powerful research tool available. Here's a breakdown of the features most relevant to reporting:

• The Daily Alert - MassTrac's Daily Alert delivers updates on bills you're tracking directly to your email every business day. You can configure it to notify you of votes, amendments, committee hearings, and more. 

• AI-Generated Bill Summaries - MassTrac generates plain-language summaries of every bill in the State House. These summaries, both written and available in audio, help you explain complicated policy to lay audiences.

• Smart Search - MassTrac's Smart Search uses AI to understand your intent when you search, finding relevant legislation even when the exact term doesn't appear in a bill's title. 

• Smart Compare - MassTrac's Smart Compare tool shows you precisely what language was added, removed, or moved between any two versions of a bill — no manual line-by-line review required.

• Talk-2-Text Hearing Transcripts - MassTrac's searchable, clickable transcripts of hearings and formal sessions let you quickly find and quote exactly what a legislator or testifier said — without sitting through hours of footage. 

• Legislator Profiles - Every elected official has a story. MassTrac consolidates demographic information, party affiliation, legislative district, and more - making it easier to write up a profile or find a source.

• Scorecard Feature - View how legislators voted on any bill. The Scorecard feature lets you group a set of bills and track votes across them simultaneously.

• Staff Directories - MassTrac maintains monthly-updated directories with accurate contact information for every member of the Massachusetts Legislature. 

• Budget Coverage Made Easier - The annual state budget is one of the most consequential stories a Massachusetts journalist can cover. MassTrac provides a general overview of the budget plus catalogs and summaries of every amendment and outside sections. 

How Other Journalists Use InstaTrac Data

You don't have to take our word for it. Reporters at some of Massachusetts' most prominent news organizations have been turning to MassTrac data to power their journalism for years.

• WBUR reported that legislators had tacked on $81 million in amendments to the final $61.5 billion budget bill, relying on data compiled by MassTrac to quantify which lawmakers closest to Democratic leadership received the most funding (2025). 

The Boston Globe has featured many articles using InstaTrac’s MassTrac platform: 

• The Globe used InstaTrac's vote data to trace candidate DiZoglio's legislative record over time, showing how her voting patterns shifted across her years in office (2022)

• The Globe used an InstaTrac analysis of candidate Geoff Diehl's legislative record to examine the amendments he had filed on minimum wage legislation, providing context to campaign claims (2022)

• The Globe cited InstaTrac data to show how minority leader Bradley Jones secured the second-highest number of earmarks of any House member (2019)

• The Globe relied on Instatrac data to aide their investigation into legislative committee productivity (2024)

• The Globe cited InstaTrac data on a senator's missed votes during an investigation into subsidized lawmaker travel (2018).

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The Bottom Line

The Massachusetts government moves fast and InstaTrac's tools were built for people who need to track all of it.

Whether you're breaking news on a budget amendment, writing a profile on a freshman legislator, or digging into what a town's school committee actually said about a controversial policy -  MassInsider and MassTrac allow you to do it faster, more accurately, and more thoroughly.

Start your free trial at instatrac.com or subscribe to MassInsider today at massinsider.net.