diff --git a/date_selection.py b/date_selection.py
index 34de4c08d98b66e5998de164a9c9e5aa94044385..b48c34a0e6ed40570a07c4031a4e95254ff23b95 100644
--- a/date_selection.py
+++ b/date_selection.py
@@ -15,8 +15,6 @@ def rank_dates_by_mention_count(articles, start_date, end_date):
 
 
 def rank_dates_by_wilson(articles, start_date, end_date):
-    edges = []
-
     # count how often each published -> mentioned pair occurs
     pub_to_mention_count = Counter({})
     for article in articles:
@@ -28,6 +26,7 @@ def rank_dates_by_wilson(articles, start_date, end_date):
 
     # the edge weight for each published -> mentioned pair
     # is how often it occurs * the temporal distance between the dates
+    edges = []
     for pub_date, mentioned_date in pub_to_mention_count.keys():
         date_diff = (datetime.strptime(pub_date, '%Y-%m-%d') - datetime.strptime(mentioned_date, '%Y-%m-%d')).days
         edge_weight = pub_to_mention_count[(pub_date, mentioned_date)] * abs(date_diff)