Daniel Sturm
Journalism & Research
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INDIVIDUALS
Argali White & Yellow. Searches multiple telephone and directories at once. People, business, toll-free, reverse search, search for area and zip codes.
http://www.argali.comBirth, Death, Marriage and Divorce. Vital records provides details on how to access vital records from any state/county.
http://vitalrec.comCareer InfoNet is an electronic storehouse of national, state and local labor market data with employment trends, wages, and more. It also lists millions of employers by industry, occupation and name, as well as prevailing wages and living costs anywhere in the country.
http://www.acinet.org
Death Index: Ancestry.com, a genealogical firm, makes the Social Security Death Index available.
http://www.ancestry.com/ssdi/advanced.htm
Find E-mail Addresses
http://www.whowhere.com
People Search: It's surprising how many times the essential directory is overlooked in trying to research someone.
http://www.switchboard.comPower Elites. The Internet Guide to Power Structure Research provides some of the better sources of biographical information that are available online.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~vburris/whorules/elites.htm
Property Search.
Mahoning county. Search property records using the Mahoning County Auditor's web site.
http://www.mahoningcountyauditor.org/propertymax/rover30.asp?sid=B5CDC0B112174F42B429F141AFAF7085Trumull county. Search property records using the Trumbull County Auditor's web site.
http://69.68.42.167:7036/propertysearch/ureca_asp/index.htm
Public Library: Many libraries have a collection of Who's Who for states or regions as well as the country. Polk's City Directory or social directory lists an individual's occupation and home or business ownership.
http://catalog.libraryvisit.org/
GOVERNMENT
Bills. Searches the history of bills, provides summaries and status with links to the Congressional Record.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/legislative.html
Campaign Finances
Federal level. Search the disclosure database.
http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/disclosure_data_search.shtml
State level (Ohio). Ohio Secretary of State's web site.
http://www1.sos.state.oh.us/pls/portal/PORTAL_CF.CF_QRY_CAND_CONT.SHOW_PARMS
City/Town Infos. Find statistics and indexes on thousands of cities, towns and villages across the United States. Plus a growing list of articles, comments from local residents, and historical photos.
http://www.citytowninfo.com/City Scorecards. Money magazine and CNN/Money spent months looking for Great American Towns -- where you would want to raise your children and celebrate life's milestones. Starting with more than 1,300 cities, we settled on 10 winners.
http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/states/OH.html
http://www.bestplaces.net/city/default.aspxCongressional Biographical Directory. Search for information on members of the US Congress from 1774 to the present day by entering a name, position or state.
http://bioguide.congress.gov
Congressional Investigations. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has new reports available on the Internet within days of their release. GAO reports can be very useful when backgrounding a story.
http://www.gao.govCriminal Justice Sources. A detailed resource guide linking to a wide array of online data, statistics and expert sources, published by the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture and the Columbia Journalism Review.
http://archives.cjr.org/resources/crime2k/crim2k.pdf
Crime Records through Virtual Chase. List of US criminal records from Virtual Chase.
http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/criminal_records.html
Education Stats. The National Center for Education Statistics, located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.
http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/
Electronic Records. The Reporter's Committee provides details on access to electronic records, with state-by-state breakdown.
http://rcfp.org/elecaccess/
FindLaw. FindLaw provides links to a wide range of material helpful to reporters, from state and local bar associations to state laws.
http://www.findlaw.comFirst Search. No matter where you live and work, getting information on, from or about the American government is vital. The official search page of the US government is an excellent place to start.
http://firstgovsearch.gov/search
Freedom of Information Act
Federal level. The Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press has a fill-in-the-blanks program that instantly generates a properly constructed request under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
http://www.rcfp.org/foi_lett.htmlState level. The Student Press Law Center has created a site that tailors public records requests for all 50 state open records laws.
http://www.splc.org/foiletter.aspGovernment Documents. The Government Printing Office provides congressional bills, presidential documents, Federal Register, Congressional Record, the U.S. Government Manual and other government documents the day of publication.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/databases.html
Government Statistics. The FedStat site links to 70 federal agencies that collect and disseminate various statistics.
http://www.fedstats.govLabor Market Statistics: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
http://www.bls.gov/data
Legislator Search:
Federal level. First search provides information about each Member of the Senate and the House--listed by states and districts, respectively--and includes additional data such as his/her committee memberships, terms of service, administrative assistant and/or secretary, and room and telephone numbers.
http://clerk.house.gov/index.htmlState level. The NCSL database contains information gleaned from the home pages and websites of the fifty state legislatures, the District of Columbia and the Territories. You can select to view specific website content materials (such as, bills, press rooms, statutes) from all states, one state or a selected list of states.
http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm
Bios. Search for information on members of the US Congress from 1774 to the present day by entering a name, position or state.
http://bioguide.congress.govMIAs/POWs. This Library of Congress database includes synopses of all of the 131,000-plus publicly available federal documents concerning military personnel listed as missing in action and prisoners of war from the Vietnam War.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pow/powhome.htmlNations Online. A database of all the world's countries, with links to other websites' information about those countries, as well as the countries' own websites.
http://www.nationsonline.org
Power Structure Research. An approach to the study of power that highlights the unequal distribution of resources upon which power is based and the importance of formal and informal social networks as the means by which power is concentrated and institutionalized.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~vburris/whorules/
Public Records: Pacific Information Resources has put together a site that links to nearly 12,000 searchable public record databases nationwide, broken down by state.
http://www.searchsystems.netRacism: Database that identifies "sundown towns" in the U.S. Based on research by James W. Loewen who wrote "Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism" (The New Press: New York 2005).
http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/content.php?file=sundowntowns-whitemap.html
Slave trade: Using as its foundation information about 27,233 voyages documented in the renowned Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database CD-ROM (Eltis et al 1999), this project contains data on more than 35,000 voyages--approximately 85 percent of the entire history of the slave trade.
http://www.metascholar.org/TASTD-Voyages/index.htmlState Campaign Finances. A database of state campaign finance records for selected states, searchable by candidate, individual donor or one of 115 special-interest groups.
http://www.followthemoney.orgState Legislators Disclosure. The Center for Public Integrity's 50 States Project provides actual personal financial disclosure documents for individual state legislators.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/lobbyCORPORATIONS
Census Data: The Census Bureau's CenStats site is free. It includes county and zip code business patterns, monthly building permit data, federal spending, census tract data and more.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfdCompany Reliability Reports. Check the Better Business Bureau for complaints and company quality ratings throughout the United States.
http://search.bbb.org
Consumer.gov. "One-stop" web site to access multiple federal consumer information resources.
http://www.consumer.gov
Grants.gov is a single access point for over 900 grant programs offered by the 26 Federal grant-making agencies. The site allows visitors to electronically find and apply for competitive grant opportunities from all included agencies.
http://grants.gov
Historical Data: The University of Virginia makes available historic census data on each state and county from 1790 to 1970. State Data Centers also can be reached via the Census Bureau.
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/Lawyers/Lobbyists: Use the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory to check out the lawyer's firm's clients to see who may really be influencing political decisions.
http://www.martindale.com/locatorLobbyists: The Center for Responsive Politics provides a searchable database of registered congressional lobbyists.
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/Nonprofit organizations. Guidestar, Philanthropic Research, Inc. Searchable database of more than 850,000 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. Individual records typically include contact information, mission/purpose, # of employees, year founded, financials, and copies of the annual filing.
http://guidestar.org
Property Records. The University of Virginia provides links to a number of state, county and municipal governments that provide property records online.
http://indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/personalproperty.htmlPublic Citizen. Organization founded by Ralph Nader, public-interest watchdog organization frequently critical of corporations.
http://www.citizen.org
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). SEC is the federal government's regulatory agency for corporations offering public sales and stocks. It obtains regular reports from 10,000 companies that have at least $1 million in assets and 500 recorded stockholders. Filings are available for 1993-2005.
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htmTaxes Paid?: Information about the amount of taxes paid on real and personal property is available at the county tax collector's office.
http://www.mahoningcountygov.comHEALTH, SCIENCE, ENVIRONMENT
Air Pollution Health Risk. To see how the health risk from industrial air pollution in your neighborhood compares to others across the country, enter your address below and click the search button.
Associated Press Health Risk Calculator
1Up Health. Has extensive information from trusted sources on over 4,000 topics including diseases, tests, symptoms, injuries, surgeries, nutrition, poisons, and special topics.
http://health.allrefer.com
Center for Science in the Public Interest - Since 1972, the CSPI has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science.
http://www.cspinet.org
Doctors. The American Medical Association provides data on every licensed physician in the U.S. (690,000 doctors), including licensing, medical school and residency training information.
http://webapps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder/home.html
Doctors License Lookup (Ohio). The state of Ohio's License Lookup is accessible to the public and will allow limited contact, credential and enforcement data to be viewed.
https://license.ohio.gov/lookup/default.asp
Drinking Water. The Environmental Working Group has compiled drinking water contamination data on more than 39751 water utilities in 42 states.
http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/findings.php
Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit environmental research organization based in Washington, DC and a leading content provider for public interest groups.
http://www.ewg.org
Affordable Colleges Online provides community resources and tools related to higher education with an eye on affordability and accreditation. You can write to us at P.O. Box 77022, San Francisco, CA 94107
http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org Everybody In, Nobody Out. Grass roots organization working for universal health care.
http://www.EverybodyInNobodyOut.org
National Center for Health Statistics. A wide array of NCHS data and statistics are available through the Centers for Disease Control.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/default.htm
National Health Law Program. Focus on analysis of legislative changes affecting low-income health consumers.
http://www.healthlaw.org
Toxic Release Data. The Right-to-Know Network makes available the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory, which enables reporters to pinpoint toxic emissions from specific plants by type and quantity.
http://www.rtknet.org
NEWS MEDIA AND JOURNALISM
Clichés Finder. Morgan Friedman's cliché finder helps you track down just the right cliché to use or to avoid.
http://www.westegg.com/cliche/
Ethics Cases Online. Dozens of case studies for journalists and students, from the School of Journalism at Indiana University.
http://www.journalism.indiana.edu/gallery/Ethics/First Amendment Center. Devoted to monitoring the state of the first amendment; has a large topic database on subjects ranging from school uniforms to cameras in the courtroom to abortion protests.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org
Independent and Alternative Bookstores, publishers, periodicals, record labels, and newsweeklies.
http://www.newpages.com
Journalism Toolbox. The American Press Institute features a resource page with links to cool research tools.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/toolbox/
LexisNexis. Provides authoritative legal, news, public records and business information online.
http://www.lexisnexis.com
News Search for U.S. News. NewsDirectory.com allows you to search for U.S. news links by area code.
http://www.ecola.com
Ohio Link. OhioLINK offers access to more than 44.8 million library items statewide. OhioLINK launched the Electronic Journal Center, a collection of full-text research journals, in 1998. The EJC contains more than 6,400 scholarly journal titles from 80+ publishers across a wide range of disciplines. The ETD Center is a free online database of 7,300 undergraduate honors theses, masters’ theses, and doctoral dissertations from students at participating Ohio colleges and universities.
http://olc1.ohiolink.edu/search/
Power Reporting. Thousands of free tools for journalists
http://www.powerreporting.org
Wayback Machine. Tied to a database of 10 billion archived Web pages that go back 5 years. See what old sites looked like.
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Who Owns What. Find out who controls the media where you live. From the Center for Public Integrity. http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/