Several sites provide useful starting points for reporters beginning to background people and businesses on-line. One of the best is maintained by Nora Paul, the Poynter Institute's ace news researcher: an on-line version of her book "Computer-Assisted Research," that can function as an on-line tutorial.
The URL is: http://www.poynter.org/poynter/chome.html
What may surprise many journalists, though, is that there is a whole other profession whose members are as interested in backgrounding people as they are. These are "prospect researchers," the folks who help charities and other nonprofits figure out how much potential donors can afford to give by checking out property records, stock prices, biographies, demographics - records equally useful to journalists. Here are a few sites maintained by some of the best in that profession that are worth checking out.
The Internet Prospector, a terrific site maintained by Randy Bunny at the University of Wyoming, with contributions from ace researchers around the country. It includes tutorials: http://plains.uwyo.edu/~prospect
The Prospect Research Page, maintained by the University of Washington's David Lamb: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dlamb/research.html
Butler University's Prospect Research Home Page, maintained by Martha T. Murphy, director of prospect research there: http://www.butler.edu/~mmurphy/index.htmlx
Finding & backgrounding people
Use both the Internet and private data vendors to find out everything from prospects' addresses and phone numbers to the vehicles they drive.
Yahoo People Search-http://www.yahoo.com/search/people/
An all-around good people locator, searchable by name or phone number, that can provide postal and e-mail addresses. Other useful people locators are Switchboard (http://www.switchboard.com) and Four11 (http://www.four11.com). Clicking on the button marked "People" while on-line with Netscape's toolbar will bring up a page with a number of other useful people-finding sites. Another useful site is Who Where (http://www.whowhere.com), which combines people-business-finding links.
The American Medical Association Physician Locator - http://www.ama-assn.org/ Find physician addresses and credentials. From the AMA homepage, click on "AMA Health Insight" and then "Physician Select."
Martindale-Hubbell Lawyer Locator http://www.martindale.com
The on-line version of the well-thumbed, multi-volume lawyers directory. Find addresses, phone numbers, professional credentials. Westlaw provides similar information through West's Legal Directory: http://www.wld.com
The Biography Research Center This section of CompuServe (GO BIOGRAPHY), provides access to the full range of Marquis Who's Who volumes and additional similar works. Searches and downloads of full-text articles cost in the area of $5 each.
Data brokers
Data brokers compile billions of public records on individuals, including information on addresses, former addresses, property, vehicles, professional licenses, neighbors, relatives, court records, and more. Financial records, access to which are restricted under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, ordinarily are not available. The various data brokers have different offerings and different price structures. Some require special software, others use standard communications software or are available via the Internet. When opening an account with a broker, make certain that all information offered is truly public and legally acquired.
Three of the better known brokers are: CDB Infotek, Santa Ana, Calif.: (800) 427-3747 Database Technologies, Pompano Beach, Fla.: (800) 279-7710 IRSC, Fullerton, Calif.: (800) 640-4772
Go on-line to do in-depth research on both publicly held and private businesses.
Hoovers Online-http://www.hoovers.com Search a database of more than 10,000 profiles of companies, both public and private. Free searches provide basic information on companies, with links to additional on-line sources. A $9.95 per month subscription enables access to more in-depth profiles.
Dun & Bradstreet, TRW business profiles These profiles are a way to research thousands of businesses, including officer names, general business information, payment patterns, debts, liens, and judgments, etc. Most information is self-reported and must be considered in that context, but for privately-held companies, these sources often provide the best available information. Both are available on CompuServe. GO DUNS for D&B, GO TRW for TRW. Depending on the profile, prices range from about $30 to about $70.
Security & Exchange Commission/EDGAR http://www.sec.gov The SEC EDGAR database enables researchers to search for all SEC documents from publicly traded companies that file electronically. There is a 24-hour delay between the time documents are filed and when they are available via EDGAR. Immediate access is available through private vendors, including EDGAR Online, http://www.edgar-online.com, which charges $9.95 month.
Stock Quotes--http://www.stockmaster.com Many services provide on-line stock quotes, usually with a 15-20-minute delay. Stockmaster is just one.
News
The American Journalism Review, a journalism trade magazine, maintains a Web site that lists the on-line addresses of hundreds of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations. The URL is http://www.ajr.org. The Yahoo Internet index also provides a good list at http://www.yahoo.com.
Some journals permit full-text searching of their archives via their Web sites. For those that don't, try Knowledge Index (GO KI), the Newspaper Archive (GO NEWSARCHIVE), the Magazine Database (GO MAGDB). Downloads of full-text articles cost no more than a couple of dollars each.
Here are some major Web news outlets. Some charge for complete access:
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com The Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicago.tribune.com The Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com The Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com CNN: http://www.cnn.com/
General Information
The U.S. Census Bureau - http://www.census.gov The official source of information on the nation, states, counties, municipalities, even neighborhoods.
The White House - http://www.whitehouse.gov A gateway to information on the president and all executive-branch departments. See especially "The Interactive Citizens Handbook," which provides links to departments, independent agencies, and more.
THOMAS: Congress On-line http://thomas.loc.gov THOMAS (named after Thomas Jefferson) provides links to both houses of Congress. Offerings include bill-tracking and the Congressional Record.
The CIA World Factbook - http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/pubs.html A CIA handbook containing detailed profiles of every country in the world.
The America Online Reference Desk- http://www.aol.com/community/channels/reference A variety of reference links - dictionaries, thesauri, etc. - put on the Web by the folks at AOL.
MapQuest - http://www.mapquest.com Maps of a neighborhood or a region. Pick the area you want to see and the map will display. Can be printed.
Mailing lists and newsgroups
Internet mailing lists, sometimes known as listservs, allow people interested in a particular topic to talk among themselves via e-mail. The computer administering the list acts as a kind of relay station; any e-mail sent to the list is relayed to anybody who signed up for the list.
PRSPCT-L is a listserv for prospect researchers that can yield useful tips for journalists, too.
To subscribe, send e-mail to: listserv@bucknell.edu
In the body of the message, type the following: SUBSCRIBE PRSPCT-L
You will receive a message acknowledging your subscription. Make sure to read and keep it - it describes how to post to the list and how to unsubscribe.
To post a message to PRSPCT-L, send it to: prspct-l@bucknell.edu
Note that you post to the list itself, while you subscribe (and unsubscribe) by sending e-mail to the listserv address.
The Internet Prospector is a monthly newsletter developed and distributed by the folks who bring you the prospect research site of the same name. It is posted to the PRSPCT-L mailing list every month. You can also see both the current and past issues at the Internet Prospector Web site, listed above.
If the subject of a story is on-line, it can be useful to find out what they've been posting in Internet discussions. DejaNews archives the contents of thousands of Internet newsgroups