Click, scroll. Click, scroll. Click, scroll. The Internet is an amazing reporting tool, but only if you know how to use it. How much time have you wasted hunting around for that one fact or statistic you know is out there, but just can’t locate? Like a stubborn guy unwilling to ask for directions, you just keep clicking and scrolling, hunting around cyberspace, determined to find the gold – even though a quick phone call probably could have gotten you the info in half the time.
Or maybe you’re one of those people who don’t even bother searching the Net, even though your stingy newspaper finally paid for a connection at your desk. You know the information is online but you don’t know how to find it, so you suffer through hold times and cranky government workers to get the facts.
Despite embracing the Net early on, I, too, have had these frustrations. So over the years I’ve gathered the most useful sites, and now you can find my collection on CyberJournalist.net, a site I run that offers tips and commentary on journalism in the digital age.
The CyberJournalist SuperSearch is not just a collection of links for journalists – it’s one page packed with actual search tools. From this page you can directly query all the major search engines, find just about any reference information, track down specific news stories, look up company information and get phone numbers and addresses.
Many of the searches engines on the page are self-explanatory, but here are some tips on how to make the best use of them, followed by a few pointers on searching online in general. (more…)