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Tools
Some tools
A few journalism blogs:
spj.org | From the Society of Professional Journalists, lots of resources |
Buzz Machine | From Jeff Jarvis, journalism scholar and writer at CUNY |
Columbia Journalism Review | From the Prestigious CJR at Columbia U (see the kicker blog for daily takes on stories) |
Press Think | From Prof. Jay Rosen at NYU, thoughtful takes on news and issues affecting journalism and beyond |
JournaJunkie | From Prof. Marsha Ducey at SUNY-Brockport, interesting takes on the plights facing journalists |
No more Mr. Nice blog | From Steve M., thoughtful cynicism, with many links |
Other resources:
Friends don’t let friends watch TV news (for news, anyway). But if you must watch TV …. | Free Speech TV; Democracy Now!; al Jazeera America; |
EOU Library list of online databases | Right in your own backyard. Peruse it or lose it. |
open secrets | An effort to peel off layers of secrecy that shroud government activities. From the Center for Responsive Politics. Specializes in exposing campaign funding–find out who has bought out your state’s members of Congress. Also a news page (fast-moving field, this one). |
ALEC Exposed | Want to know who’s writing bills for legislators these days, while legislators hold industry fundraisers and call for accountability of state government employees and universities? Start with ALEC. |
AllGov | What it says–covers the government, and does what the networks don’t in many cases. Increasingly important in an anti-government era. You can get information on any department, with their official seals n’ everything! |
Black Agenda Report | ‘News, commentary and analysis from the Black left.’ A perspective that rarely makes its way into the mainstream news cycle (and when it does, usually for the wrong reasons). |
Campaign Legal Center | ‘Representing the public interest in enforcement of campaign and media law.’ |
Citizen Truth | Alternative media, professed goal of ending the left-right paradigm (no, it’s not the natural order …), funded by Google Adsense. |
The Conversation | A much wider variety of stories and both journalistic and academic perspectives on them (regular consumption will make you more worldly …). |
sourcewatch.org | Excellent site–sort of an encyclopedia of media chicanery, run by the PR-savvy at the Center for Media and Democracy. Search it for individuals, think tanks, front groups, etc.–your source for de-stealthing propaganda. |
Crosscut | Pretty sure things are screwed up but tired of self-righteous punditry outrage? This reader-supported, electronic news media site, covering the Pacific Northwest, is full of biting sarcasm, Zen-style bait-and-switch learning opportunities, and social and political insight. Wish I could write that good . . . |
Factbase | The name defines the purpose–holding politicians–especially those that lie to the public–to account through fact-based documentation. This website “hosts a publicly available, searchable database intended to contain everything Donald Trump has said or tweeted (There’s a youtube channel as well). |
Internet Observatory | from Stanford University, conducts research on misinformation: “cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies, with a focus on social media.” |
Journalist’s resource | Provides resources for journalists sifting through competing and contested claims and seeking to ground their work in research and reality. |
PRwatch | By the people who bring you sourcewatch, more focused on the PR industry. |
Media Alliance | A voice for reform in a corporate wilderness. Their MediaFile page is a good source of info on what’s currently going on (that we’re not hearing about) in the sordid world of media and government. |
Media Standards Trust | A variety of tools and publications designed to support upholding high standards for journalism and media. |
National Priorities | Think you want to know how your tax dollars are spent? |
Crap Detection Resources | Communications scholar, writer and social critic Howard Rheingold offers some useful tools (and even a ‘mini-course‘) for BS detection |
LexisNexis Academic | available from our Library, great for doing news-related research |
LittleSis | “a grassroots watchdog network connecting the dots between the world’s most powerful people and organizations.” |
Media Bias Fact Check | “Founded in 2015, is an independent online media outlet. MBFC News is dedicated to: educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices; inspiring action and a return to an era of straight forward news reporting. Funding comes from site advertising, individual donors, and the pockets of our bias checkers.” |
NewsGuard | “NewsGuard ‘helps you decide which news sources to trust — with ratings from humans, not algorithms’.” |
International Fact Checking Network | ‘a unit of the Poynter Institute dedicated to bringing together fact-checkers worldwide. The IFCN was launched in September 2015 to support a booming crop of fact-checking initiatives by promoting best practices and exchanges in this field.’ |
Fact Checker (Washington Post) | As the name suggests. |
Politifact (fact checker) | from the Tampa Bay Times–tries to document (hard to keep up, though!) the lies and half-truths of politicians and their campaigns |
Sunlight Foundation | ‘Making government and politics more accountable and transparent.’ One example: Their Trump conflict of interest page. |
Public Data Lab | ‘seeks to facilitate research, democratic engagement and public debate around the future of the data society.’ Field Guide to Fake News and other Information Disorders‘ |
Wikimedia Commons | ” provides a central repository for freely licensed photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, and media of all sorts “ |
Militarist Monitor | “independent online publishing project that assesses the work of prominent organizations and individuals—both in and out of government—who promote militaristic U.S. foreign and defense policies.” |
CorpWatch | Keep track of your favorite multinational corporation! |
Undark | “non-profit, editorially independent digital magazine exploring the intersection of science and society–the place where science is articulated in our politics and our economics; or where it is made potent and real in our everyday lives.” |
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | excellent site for picking apart policy and statistical manipulation |
FiveThirtyEight | Excellent source for statistics, aggregated polls, discussion of politics (and sports and other things) and the application of statistics to a better understanding of them. |
Columbia Journalism Review | From the most prestigious US journalism school–a variety of topics and discussions. |
CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Now there’s a concept … they do reports and FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests when the government won’t play nice. |
Polling Report | ‘An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion.’ |
Axios | News on politics, business, tech and the media from veteran journalist Mike Allen (formerly of the Washington Post) |
Pew Research Center | Non-profit, does lots of public opinion polling on a wide variety of important topics. |
Public Accountability Initiative | “nonprofit public interest research organization focused on corporate and government accountability, specializing in researching and mapping power” |
ProPublica | To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing. |
Axios | News on politics, business, tech and the media from veteran journalist Mike Allen (formerly of the Washington Post) |
The Real News | ‘We cover the big stories of the day, but we broaden the definition of what’s important: the movements for working peoples’ rights, for peace, for the health of our planet, and against racism – are news.’ Leans left. |
Medium | A website for people who don’t frequent standard news sites. Pop culture and tech are prominently featured. |
The Weekly List | from the site: ‘This is how democracy ends.’ Attempts to document what the curator perceives as executive assaults on democratic process and institutions. |
Snopes.com | this is the site that debunks all of those stupid emails you get forwarded (like the tax on email, or the billion dollar Microsoft giveaway) |
Tyndall Report | “The Tyndall Report monitors the weekday nightly newscasts of the three American broadcast television networks: ABC World News (currently with David Muir), CBS Evening News (currently with Norah O’Donnell) and NBC Nightly News (currently with Lester Holt).” |
Washington Spectator | A project of the Public Concern Foundation. Irreverent journalism you won’t find in too many places. |
Gapminder | Macarthur grantee Hans Rosling (may he rest in playful peace) is funny and smart and will make you think twice about any aversion you have to statistics. Check this out. |
Open Democracy | ‘Free thinking for the world.’ If you read one story from here every day, you would rather quickly know more about it than some very stable geniuses. |
Google News search | A good starting place, worthy of its own link |
Rhetorica | Prof. Andrew Cline offers insight into media-related persuasion, spin, argumentation. Check out the resources on critical thinking |
Global Voices | Online citizen media community–you will definitely learn more about the world if you follow this one. |
Public Interest | Online citizen media community–you will definitely learn more about the world if you follow this one.Excellent source of information on issues related to public and private sector conflicts, and learning more about the privatization of public wealth and assets. |
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