We find the following resources useful. Please contact us to recommend your favorite sites.

Journalism and Media Resources

Center for Investigative Reporting | www.muckraker.org
Founded more than 25 years ago, this nonprofit organization works to "strengthen democracy by exposing injustice and abuse of power." Their reporters conduct investigations that are funded by private grants and donations. Their work is then sold or contributed for free to hundreds of different media outlets, from PBS to the New York Times. This site offers tools for reporters, books and videos, as well as an extensive archive of CIR investigations. The San Francisco Chronicle profiled the CIR in a 2002 article.

Citizen Joe | www.citizenjoe.org
This nonprofit site is focused on creating an informed citizenry through non-partisan guides to public policy issues. Their links page is a terrific directory to credible information sources. And their Civics 101 section offers great basic information about government. Policy sections deal with energy, education, trade and other important issues.

FAIR | www.fair.org
A nonprofit media watch group working "to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints." Their site offers analysis of current media trends, including an article called, What's Wrong With The News. Their website offers extensive archives of articles written on a range of issues that are underreported by the media.

Independent Press Association | www.indypress.org
The IPA mission is "to amplify the power of independent publications so as to foster a more just, open and democratic society." The nonprofit group helps its 450 member magazines and newspapers to learn from each other, reduce costs and reach a wider audience. Their site provides links to member publications, as well as tools for publishers.

Independent World Television | www.iwtnews.com
A startup television news network that is seeking to raise 100% of funding from the public and to forgo any corporate or advertising funding. This new project welcomes your ideas and donations. Take a look.

Investigative Reporters and Editors | www.ire.org
Based at the University of Missouri Journalism School, the IRE is a grassroots nonprofit organization "dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting." They maintain a database of reporters with subject expertise and also conduct training for reporters.

The Journalist's Toolbox | www.journaliststoolbox.com
A project of the American Press Institute, this site is extremely useful for researching a wide range of topics via the Web. The API is a training organization for professional journalists.

News You Might Have Missed | www.newsdesk.org
Newsdesk.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, commercial-free news bureau dedicated to the principle that democracy can only flourish when citizens are fully informed about the urgent issues of our times. Subscribe to their weekly email newsletter, News You Might Have Missed, to catch fascinating stories from far-reaching media sources.

Pew Research Center for People and the Press | www.people-press.org
This independent opinion research group studies attitudes towards the press as well as public policy issues and politics. You can read all of their surveys and reports for free at this site.

Project for Excellence in Journalism | www.journalism.org
A collaboration between the Committee of Concerned Journalists and the PEJ, this site aims "to clarify and raise the standards of journalism in America, as well as training citizens to identify what they want from the news, and how to get it." The site offers extremely handy tools and resources. And the group offers training programs for citizens.

Public Journalism Network | www.pjnet.org
This association of professional journalists works "to explore and strengthen the relationship between journalism and democracy." Their site has many useful links as well as a weblog.

Stats | www.stats.org
STATS monitors the media to expose the abuse of science and statistics before people are misled and public policy is distorted. "We check out the facts and figures behind the news." The site has many news articles and also a list of recommended information sources.

Wiretap | www.wiretapmag.org
A project of Alternet.org and the Independent Media Institute, Wiretap aims to "provide a new generation of writers, artists and activists a space to network, organize and mobilize" by targeting socially conscious youth. The site is a portal for many youth media groups, as well as a lively collection of news articles, artwork and essays generated by young people.

Searching Resources

Internet Public Library | www.ipl.org
Run by the teachers and students at the University of Michigan School of Information, the Internet Public Library helps Internet users to find, evaluate, select, organize and use information resources. The site includes tutorial pages about web searching that will help choose among the different search engines.

Librarians' Index to the Internet | www.lii.org
This reference service is compiled by the Library of California and includes resources selected and evaluated by librarians. This site has good tips about how to effectively use other Internet research tools.

Ixquick | www.ixquick.com
One of several socalled "metasearch engines" this tool helps you find whatever you are looking for on the web by searching other search engines. This is a fast, accurate way to find resources from several sources at once.

Google Answers | www.answers.google.com
When all else fails, you can pay a fee ranging between $2.50 and $200, to ask Google's expert web searchers to answer questions that you don't have time to research on your own. All questions and answers are posted to a massive database and remain accessible to the public. The service seems to work best for questions that are not controversial or complex, and for information that is readily available from mainstream news sources.

Questia | www.questia.com
Questia provides Internet access to books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles. Organized to serve students and other academic researchers, the site is great for finding materials overlooked by the search engines.