Informal surveillance systems like HealthMap (HM) are effective at the early detection of outbreaks (1, 2) . However, reliance on informal sources such as news media makes the efficiency of these systems vulnerable to newsroom constraints, namely highprofile disease events drawing reporting resources at the expense of other potential outbreaks and diminished staff over weekends and holidays. To our knowledge, this effect on informal or syndromic surveillance systems has yet to be studied.