When the federal building was bombed in downtown Oklahoma City, Detroit News reporter Dave Farrell turned to the Internet to show readers how bomb books are just a phone call away.
Farrell had found one of the most complete encyclopedias on destruction - "The Big Book of Mischief," a 40,000-word electronic tome on bomb-building, explosives and weapons of terror.
When ValuJet Flight 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 people aboard, Tennessean reporter Heather Newman turned to the Internet for a listing of the aircraft's Service Difficulty Reports. Newman was able to document specific problems experienced by the downed plane in the months prior to the crash.
These are just two examples of how the Internet can help reporters cover major news events.
Computer-assisted reporting is quickly becoming as valuable to reporters as notepads and the telephone. However, although the Internet can be a valuable reporting tool, the information gained is no more accurate than it is from other sources.
Some reporters and their news operations were embarrassed in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing when they reported as factual two online hoaxes. Someone on America Online identifying himself as "Timothy McVeigh" posted several messages that tabloid TV shows - and later some newspapers - picked up and used without confirmation. McVeigh had been behind bars two days prior to the postings. On an Internet news group, a man identifying himself as a militia member from Montana posted inflammatory messages that the U.S. government was behind the bombing. The man later admitted he had posted the messages as a joke, but not before some newspapers already had reported the remarks as factual. When surfing the Internet, always be leery of dirty data. Almost every piece of data you will work with is certain to have some quirks. So, bottom line online: Check it out!
Here's a list of free searchable databases any newsroom with Internet access can access:
FACSNET is a service developed by the Foundation for American Communications for print and broadcast journalists. Not just another homepage with lists of Internet links, FACSNET goes deep into economics, science, business, technology and other areas that journalists cover every day. Databases include reporting tools, sources online, internet resources for journalists and top issues. http://www.facsnet.org
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies' "Hot News/Hot Research" homepage will feature research sources that will help you understand and cover top stories. They will be looking at a number of links, but only list the ones with some useful content. http://www.poynter.org/poynter/hrintro.html
U.S. Federal and State Courts Finder is a service of the Emory School of Law. This point-and-click map to federal courts provides hypertext links to all on-line federal court sites. http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDCTS/ http://www.law.cornell.edu/opinions.html
Supreme Court opinions and related documents in WordPerfect 5.1 or html format. From the HERMES project, these documents are transmitted by the court upon release and uploaded to The Federal Bulletin Board daily. http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/court01.htm http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/ http://www.law.cornell.edu/syllabi ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/hermes/
One of the most complete all-in-one sites with access to several dozen state constitutions, statutes, codes, legislation, is found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/statutes.html
United U.S. Post Office Database that actually corrects addresses and gives you ZIP+4. http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/adserv.html http://www.ualberta.ca/~slis/guides/direct/phone.htm http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/aq-zip.html gopher://odie.niaid.nih.gov:70/77/deskref/zipcodes/index
And, you can even look up ZIP+4 Codes for United States vessels at http://www.semaphorecorp.com/cgi/navy.html
Search college telephone books from around the world through a vast collection of searchable telephone books and other directories. gopher://gopher.nd.edu:70/11 Click on "Non-Notre Dame Information Sources" Click on "Phone Books-Other Institutions"
Reporters and editors can calculate everything from foreign exchange rates, local tides, distances between cities, taxes, loan and mortgage rates, the amount of seed needed to plant an acre of different crops and even a quarterback's passer rating on the Calculators On-line Web page. http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators.html
We'll look at some more sites next month.
David Milliron can be reached at (703) 276-5805, or send e-mail to dmilliro@gcil.gannett.com