My Quick Net Guide
 

 

    There are several sites that can make you look like an expert and add texture to your story quickly and with little time or effort. These sites are great  for daily reporting. 

 

General Guides to Government Info 

  • Thomas (http://thomas.loc.gov) The one stop guide to Congress. Here's where you can search by subject to see if any member has said anything on the floor of the House or Senate that can add to your story. Here's also where you can search to see what legislation is pending on the subject you're interested in - and where it is in the legislative process. Guaranteed: if your story deals with a political, social or economic problem (and if it doesn't, why are you writing it), probably somebody in Congress has said something about it.
  • SuDoc's Catalog . (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cgp/index.html)

    The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications for years has been an indispensable guide to what the government is publishing. It's become far more user friendly since computers were invented. No longer do you have to search by month to see what publications, reports, brochures, etc., the government has issued on a subject. Now you can search years at a time with one search engine. One problem: the Catalog tells you what has been published and where to find it but only the more recent documents are published on the internet. That means you may have to make a trip to a government depository library to retrieve the actual document.

     

  •  http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/oct01/price.htm Here's an article by Gary Price, a librarian at George Washington University, that tells you the strengths and limitations of each of the major internet search engines. Don't leave home without first reading it.

     

  • Direct Search (http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm) and the List of Lists http://www.specialissues.com/lol/ Gary Price also has compiled a fantastic list of governmental data resources that don't show up in most search engines. Take the time to familiarize yourself with his site. It's not the most organized resource but you often can find things here that you can't find anywhere else. 

     

  • SuDoc's database page. (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/databases.html)   The Superintendent of Documents at the General Printing Office has put together a page that not only lists several major databases of government information but also allows you to search them all in one form. Check it out.
  •  First Gov (http://www.firstgov.gov)  Search over 3 million federal government web pages at one time. And then there's always the old standbys: the Federal Web Locator (http://www.infoctr.edu/fwl/) and Fedworld (http://www.fedworld.com) (this site has pretty much been superceded by FirstGov but there's still some good things to be found on it). Try them all and pick your favorite. 
  • Hearings Before....  (http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/cong017.html) The best source of information about a social, economic or political problem often can be found in Hearings Before..... Before Congress considers legislation, it has hearings on the subject. Usually, the committees bring in experts from around the country to testify as to the best course of action. Those comments are transcribed and put together in a book called Hearings Before (whatever committee on whatever subject). Now those hearings are being put online. You won't get everything you need everytime from this source but it's certainly worth a quick try -- particularly since the more recent hearings are available online, saving you a trip to the library.
  • GAO Reports. (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gaoreports.index.html) GAO is the watchdog of Congress and, as such, a significant source of information on how government programs are functioning. The reports can be highly revealing but one must remember that GAO serves Congress and Congress (and the Congressmen requesting a GAO investigation) are somewhat political.
  • Michigan's Documents Center. (http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/) One of the better organized sites on the web for getting government information. An added bonus. If you click on documents in the news, you will see how other newspapers are using the Internet and access to government documents to beef up their stories.  
  • Federal Bulletin Board System. (http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/) This one is more time consuming but it worth looking at when you're not on deadline. It's simply a listing of documents that can be downloaded in zip format and exploded on your computer. So if you have a fast connection and need the full report, try the FBBS system. It does require that you fill out a form online before entering and downloading documents.
  • National Press Club's library links. ( http://npc.press.org/library/reporter.cfm) Not a federal resource itself but a very well organized list of links to federal (and other recognized sources of) information of interest to reporters.
  • The World Lecture Hall  (http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/)    is not a government site, and it certainly doesn't show up as a link on most reporting web pages. But it's certainly worth a look if you have time. The WLH is basically a listing of online courses in various academic subjects. Sometimes you might find that a college professor who teaches, for example, business law,  has better links to resource material in his area than you do.  Check it out.

 

More Specific Sites

Big Business 

Edgar is a gold mine of information on publicly traded businesses, once you learn how to wade through a 10K or 10Q form. Businesses tell the SEC lots of things they aren't likely to tell you in a press release -- or even in an interview. Even better is the 10KWizard, a commercial operation that allows full text search of Edgar's database. Just type in the name you're interested in and watch it go. Fantastic resource for reporters. Louisiana maintains a databases of corporations that lists agents and owners. And Forbes has a useful list of the 500 biggest corporations that links to useful information on each of them.

Courts  

These sites are quite useful for uncovering the courts. Cornell law school maintains searchable full text rulings by the Supreme Court and Emory Law School in Atlanta has a fabulous index of appellate court decisions broken down by circuit. Georgia State's law school offers a metaindex searchform that allows you to search several sites at once.  FederalCourts.Com  has several good links worth checking out. Findlaw offers both hierarchial menus broken down by interest area and a search box. It also offers state by state breakdowns.

Crime 

Good sources of basic statistical information on crime by type or region. 

Demographics

Do you really need to know how many left-handed Polynesians living in Biloxi have more than 1.5 children, suffer from linguistic isolation, make more than $100,000 a year and have more than two bathrooms? Just ask the Census Bureau. More statistics than you can possibly digest -- and all can be easily tailored to your specific story or specific region (check out the state profile input box, located on the right side of the Census main page. It brings up a map that lets you break down the statistics by county.)  While there, don't forget to check out the Statistical Abstract but be sure to scroll down the page. For some reason, the page you get advertises how to buy the book or CD-ROM (which is well worth having and I highly recommend you spend the money). The free tables are hiding below the ad.

Health

Just in case you get sick or decide to visit a foreign country. The Centers for Disease Control site also has good morbidity and mortality tables. CDC Wonder allows you to create your own queries of CDC databases. The National Institutes of Health has Cancernet, AIDS related information and so forth. And, lest we forget, NIH also offers Medline,  the best medical value in town. This is a listing of published research on just about every illness known to man). 

Education 
  •  Eric. (http://ericir.syr.edu/) 

A wealth of information on education. Try the searchable database for a quick guide to journal articles and abstracts relating to educational issues. The Ask Eric Q&A also is quite helpful. 

Environment

Here's just a few of the links to databases and information sources on the environment. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry site is fantastic and allows you to find out, for example, what chemicals are present in a particular waste site and whether they are carcinogenic or mutagenic. The Toxic Release Inventory allows you to see what chemicals are being emitted by individual plants or businesses.

Politics and Money

If you're covering politics, then you must know who controls the pursestrings. Here's where you can find out the major contributors to individual campaigns for Congress. The FEC maintains these records and you can view or download from their site. A better download site, however, is American University's dbase files, which already are formatted for use by personal computers. If you don't want to do the heavy lifting yourself, try Tray's FECInfo page, or Open Secrets, which allow you to submit pre-defined queries to the FEC data. And then, don't forget Project Vote Smart, a one stop source for basic biographical data, voting records, etc. 

State governments

State & Local Government gives you a quick guide to state and local governments online   You also can usually find a state government site by going to  http://www.state.??.us.   Type in the two digit postal code abbreviation for your state where the ?? is in this URL.) Not all states have a solid web site up yet but some do -- and a little surfing in advance of your story can sure make the story go easier.

 

Other Newsroom Essentials

  • Bartlett's: When you can't find anybody to quote, quote  a dead guy. It doesn't add to the news value but it does add historical perspective to your story and makes you look far more literate than you are. It doesn't work well on hard news, of course, but it can make features and editorials far more interesting. There are several sites for this. Try Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/)   as a starter. Just type in the subject words you're interested in and up pops some quotes from some famous dead guy.  Also try  the Online Shakespeare  (http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html).
  • Mapquest:   (http://www.mapquest.com)  Occasionally, managing editors like to see their reporters get out of the office. That's when this site can come in handy. It gives you door-to-door directions and maps to just about any news location you can imagine. It even can be used to find directions to the trendy little restaurant you're planning to take your date tonight. Another similar service is called  Mapblast   (http://www.mapblast.com/mblast/index.mb).
  • Profnet:    (http://www.profnet.com)  Need an expert in a hurry? Profnet can find you one (or at least someone who purports to be one). This site allows you to scan individuals by subject of expertise or send a detailed email to more than 1,400 university relations offices at once. It works --but you need to be careful in checking credentials before you start calling and quoting. Some university officials provide you with a solid listing of academics who are truly experts. Others provide you with a list of newly minted assistant professors in search of publicity.