The Web Tips team continues a tradition: a year-end roundup of our favorite tips. The idea is to put together a list of the most useful tips, sites, and columns from the past year so that you can have them all in one place. (Sree’s favorites are here.)
From “A Web of Lies” to “A More Supple Google,” here are a few of my favorite things…
SUPER SEARCH TIPS
- Soople: If you’re gaga for Google, try supple Soople. It makes using Google’s most advanced features so easy that even your mother could use them. (No offense, mom.)
- Google Local Beta: Pinpoint online local resources on maps.
- Topix.net: News headlines from more than 9,000 online sources, sorted geographically and by thousands of categories.
- A9: A new search site from an Amazon.com subsidiary, A9 takes Google’s search results and adds some useful personalized features.
REPORTER RESOURCES
- About.com: A massive collection of consumer-oriented columns and links written by an army of citizen journalists.
- ProfNet tips: How to use ProfNet to find sources and avoid giving away your story ideas.
- LexisNexis AlaCarte: Search more than 3.8 billion documents from over 20,000 sources of news, public records, and government information.
- Nieman Watchdog: Questions the media should be asking, with the goal of encouraging more informed reporting.
- AltWeeklies.com: Keep up with the more than 125 alternative newsweeklies across the country.
DIGGING THROUGH DATA
- The Statistical Abstract: How to find stories in the numbers using the single most useful data source for reporters.
- Military.com’s Personnel Finder: Twenty million military files online.
- National Geographic’s MapMachine: A dynamic atlas to explore political and street maps, historic maps from the Library of Congress, population maps, USGS topographic maps, and satellite images.
FOR THE LUDDITES
- A Web of Lies: Confessions of a born-again Luddite.
- Luddite Reader Tips: Telephones, notepads, and more crazy ideas!
- Luddite Litmus Test: What to do when technology fails you.
WEB TIPS TIP O’ THE HAT AWARD
And lastly, I’d like to announce the winner of the first annual Web Tips “Tip o’ the Hat Award” for using the Web for a story: To the Chicago AP bureau, for using Yahoo! Maps to find eyewitnesses to a breaking news story, as recounted in this column.
SEND IN YOUR TIPS
What websites have you used in your reporting? Give the gift of giving this season and send in your tips so I can share them with other readers! Send to poynter (at) jondube.com.
JON’S LINKS:
