WebScout
Help with Your Research and Writing from Professionals via Journalist Toolkits
By Marcia Koth de Paredes
Professional journalists have developed helpful resources to find information, access reference materials, and exchange ideas. It is also possible to learn the elements of writing and editing for a variety of media, including online, as well as learn about new technologies as they develop. The following are examples of the dozens of webs offered by associations of journalists, university journalism departments, university professors and professional writers. These are particularly useful if you are interested in research or writing yourself, training employees to improve their communication skills or help your children be more serious about their research and learn more about facilities offered via the internet.
I Want Media
(The Media Center at the American Press Institute)
http://www.iwantmedia.com/organizations/index.html
Here you find links to books, magazines, newspapers, television & radio, advertising/marketing with lists of publications, organizations, companies, general news and other resources. The American Press Institute has also set up a web called Cyberjournalist.net that gives excellent information that helps understand emerging technologies (blogs, studies of online news use, ways to build your own site, RSS for journalists, emerging technologies in video etc.) See:
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/resources/index.php
National Press Club Online
http://npc.press.org/library/reporter.cfm
Here you find links to practical information journalists frequently need, such as biographies, Forbes four hundred, college and other telephone directories, city guides, maps. I especially like News Search Engines, News Sites with Archives Available, and Writer's Resources that links to reference works.
Poynteronline
http://poynteronline.org/content/content_view.asp?id=896
The Poynter Institute has a web toolkit for journalists that give “tips” on writing, editing, and photography (see http://poynteronline.org/content/content_view.asp?id=31910) The “tips” are short articles written by professional journalists to help understand how what to do to be an excellent writer, designer, photographer, etc. The Poynter site also has sections on management, ethics, easy access to news, other tools, centers and schools, professional organizations, foundations and awards, and bibliographies.
MediaChannel.org Journalists' Toolkit
http://www.mediachannel.org/getinvolved/journo/
The affiliates of Media Channel include major journalism associations and university journalism programs as well as groups such as the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. The toolkit has three sections: Supersites and Professional Development, Research (including how to do research, how to use statistics and databases, consider ethics and legal issues) and Writing Guides for print, radio, TV and online media.
Roger Millen's Journalists Web Tools
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rmellen/webtools.htm
Roger Millen, a professor at George Mason University, maintains a site that helps find government information and access media.
A Journalist's Guide to the Internet
http://reporter.umd.edu
Christopher Callahan, professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, maintains this web with sections referring to directories, records, online newspapers, courts and the law, business and non-profits, politics, federal and state government, search tools, listservs, newsgroups. The structure is simple and definitely helps save time.
Web Sites for Business Journalists
http://www.oatis.com/bageht.htm
This professional writer and at times university professor maintains a web that is particularly useful for business analysis and reporting. Look, for example, at his list of Financial News Sources and Resources. It makes it easier to peruse dozens of business links to study trends in the market, analyze specific firms and study the differences involved in writing for business.
