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Feature article by Dean Tudor In one of my last articles about convergence, I mentioned the "converging communications" research going on at Ryerson's School of Radio and Television Arts. Ryerson's Faculty of Communication and Design (where RTA is located) received a $2.5 million research endowment from CTV as a result of a deal that smoothed a takeover of the television network last year, and that ultimately led to a Bell Globemedia converger of Bell, CTV and the Globe and Mail. The Bell Globemedia Chair in Convergence and the Creative Use of Advanced Technology will involve such things as digital television and Internet broadcasting. York, Laval and UBC also got some funding. With convergence now on its merry way, now would be a good time to list and comment on the better journalism (non-publication specific) Web sites on the Internet. WWW Virtual Library Journalism <www.trainer.com/vlj.html> has been around since at least 1995. Founded by journalism ace trainer John Makulowich, the site contains what he calls "awesome lists" to finding things fast, with hundreds of links. Some of the more journalism-related ones include associations, news bureaus, awards and grants, conferences and papers, research, and news services. Good Canadian sources include Julian Sher's JournalismNet <www.journalismnet.com>, noted for its strong television and radio content (plus their archives!). Here you can find people, find quick facts fast, find jobs, and find beats. He notes the leading search tools, especially for video and audio sources. Hal Doran's Internet Resources for Journalists and Broadcasters <www.synapse.net/~radio/welcome.html> also has a hefty chunk of good journalism sources in Canada. Robin Rowland's Homepage <robinrowland.com> deals with the problems of the Canadian approach to the Internet vis-a-vis journalism, with notes on search engines and strategies. Kirk LaPointe's J-Home <members.tripod.com/~klapointe/>, Pierre Bourque <www.bourque.com>, and my own MegaSources <www.ryerson.ca/~dtudor/megasources.htm> are useful beginning points, since they are mainly one line lists with URLs. One strategy would be to simply download the source document for LaPointe, Bourque or Tudor, and make it a bookmark file on your hard drive. Do this once a month so you'd pick up any changes made by the creators. Strangely, all of these webmasters (except me) are currently in broadcasting! Academic sites usually provide copious materials about journalism, as well as links for their students to pursue. Ryerson, King's and Carleton generally do the best job in this situation, but you have to visit the American campus in order to get a wider scope. Journalist's Compass <www.scat.temple.edu/jcompass> is from Temple University's j-program. It has over 3500 global links to journalism sites, think tanks, writing sites, research sources, and online journalism. Another academic site is Journalism Resources from the University of Iowa's j-program <bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/journalism/> with much data and links to sites dealing with diversity, media law, teaching resources, online newsletters, citation guides, discussion groups. It is mostly American. The WWW Library of Communications and Telecommunications Resources is at <www.uky.edu/Subject/communication.html>; the WWW Library of Broadcasting and Media Resources is at <www.uky.edu/Subject/broadcasting.html>. The Poynter Institute for Media Studies <www.poynter.org> is a non-profit media think tank, with courses and resources. There are plenty of links here to online journalism, news resources, media concerns, journalism organizations, and courses. Some good American "beat" sources are Barbara Shapiro's News Researcher Graffiti Pages <www.gate.net/~barbara/index.html> based in Florida, and James Derk's Cybersleuth <scoop.evansville.net> from the Evansville, Indiana, Courier. A massive site is Power Reporting <powerreporting.com>, award-winning reporter Bill Dedman's work. It has many lists of top sites, beats, people finders, company research, government information, and a reference shelf of quick resource tools. A good place to begin looking for indexes/gateways to journalism sites is through the Journalism and Research Web Ring <www.mav.net/guidelines/webring.html> a device that hooks up many personal pages of journalists, as well as academic sites, sources, employment news, industry gossip, writing links, publications. Known as "Hacks", the webring puts you in contact with over 40 sites including the Online Journalism site at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research, The Working Reporter (from Los Angeles TV reporter Ron Olsen), FACSNET, Needle in a CyberStack, Disability-Related News Sources. Personal pages include Basil's Bookmarks, Finley's Newsstand, Franson's Research Page, Newell's Internet News Room. Sites can be in any language, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German. "Hacks" is now hosted by Yahoo, where you can find similar circles of sites for other topics <dir.webring.yahoo.com> A new site is <headlinespot.com> one of a series of sites called the StartSpot Network, specializing in news and links. Others are <bookspot.com>, <cinemaspot.com>, <libraryspot.com>, <museumspot.com>, <peoplespot.com> and at least a dozen more. Headlinespot, in addition to headlines, has category links to beats -- environment, finance, food, sports, travel, etc. -- as well as opinion pages, columnists, critics, op-ed, polls and letters to editor. Of value are the links to media associations, awards, watchdogs, resources for journalists (such as photojournalism, investigative, copy editor), job banks, j-schools, media commentary publications, and at <libraryspot.com> some fast fact sources. There are also many sites that will give you URLs for publications. MetaGrid is a newspaper and magazine locator <www.metagrid.com> arranged by subject. But my first pick here is the Library of Congress's lists of newspapers, periodicals, and news resources online <lcweb.loc.gov/rr/news/lists.html> with all links constantly being updated by librarians and researchers. Deeper research is available from the Newspaper Division of the Special Libraries Association, with its citations and links for US newspaper archives on the web <sunsite.unc.edu/slanews/internet/archives.html>. International newspapers can be accessed through <www.mediainfo.com/edpub/ e-papers.links.html>. A newer site is <www.magomania.com/english> dealing with just Canadian magazines. Writing? Try <www.humberc.on.ca/~coleman/cw-ref.html> for references and resources for writers and multimedia for writers. Jack Lynch has his excellent grammar and style notes as part of an extensive list of online writers' resources <andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing>. A good index/listing to all the online writing labs on the Internet can be found at <owl.english.purdue.edu/lab/index.html>. Karla's guide to citation style guides is at <bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/journalism/cite.html>. An alternative source to MLA and APA electronic citation formats is at <www.cc.emory.edu/WHSCL/citation.formats.html>. For "online" journalism, these are the better ones to begin with —
Other obvious Web sites would include:
Sources - Sources collects, indexes, and disseminates information to help journalists, editors, and researchers quickly reach articulate experts and spokespersons who can provide background information and comment on a wide range of topics. Servicesand publications include SOURCES SELECT® Online, Parliamentary Names & Numbers, Media Names & Numbers, The Sources HotLink, and The Sources Calendar. They also provide mailing lists. The Sources directory has a search engine for subject and name searches, and also features browseable Alphabetical and Subject Indexes.
Canadian Sources
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