Reporting Resources

Here are some links to resources for good political reporting — check’em out even if you’re not a journalist:

Political Reporting Resources

• TRACFED
  An awesome database of all sorts of federal documents, masterminded by David Burnham and Sue Long of Syracuse University
• FactCheck
  The model for fact-checking ads and political assertions
• Politifact
  A Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-check organization.
• Project Vote Smart
  A non-partisan database
• Election Glossary from PBS
  Tour-de-force site with basic info and good story examples
• Washington Post Political Glossary
  A glossary of political terms from The Washington Post.
• AP’s Election Glossary
  A glossary of political terms from The Associated Press.
• NewsLab
  A great resource by veteran TV journalist Deborah Potter, with tips on doing better reporting
• Resources for Covering Communities
  A collection of tips and resources from the Knight Chair in Community Journalism
• Sunlight Foundation
  A  resource for checking on governments
• Voting rights resources
  A compilation of links related to voting rights resources compiled by David Shedden, the library director for The Poynter Institute.
• Journalist’s Toolbox
  A great roundup of links and resources — where to find out stuff.
• OpenBook NY database on government spending
  Great database on local/state government spending
• Grammar-Spelling-Punctuation-Style
  Great site to practice those basic language/newswriting skills.
• Covering Poverty: A Toolkit for Journalists
  Great Tip Sheets, Links and other resources from the University of Georgia
• OpenCongress
  Track bills, representatives, funding and votes in Congress.
• GovTrack.us
  A database of votes, bills and representation in Congress.
• The Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker
  See how foreign interests influence U.S. policies.
• Journalists’ Resources from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center
  A broad-ranging collection of tip sheets and background info
• Places Journalists Should Go for Politics (Al Tompkins of Poynter)
  Great collection of tips from Al Tompkins of The Poynter Institute
• Follow the $ Glossary
  A glossary of money-in-politics terms by the Center for Responsive Politics.
• Government-Civics-Politics 101
  A round-up of basic information, with a special focus on New York and Onondaga County.

Follow the Money

• The Federal Elections Commission
• The Internal Revenue Service
• Center for Responsive Politics
• Federal spending database
  A searchable database of federal spending: a way to see where your tax dollars go.
• MAPLight.org
  Look up connections between money and politics.