Author Archives: Barbara Fought

Mar 12

How to find twitter accounts of media

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Barbara Fought

You are working on a story that tracks to another market.  You’d like to know what the media in that location are reporting, so you can stay on top of the story.  A quick way to do that is to … Read More →

Posted in Continuing Coverage, Finding Stories | Leave a comment
Mar 09

Quick way to dash off a FOI request

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Barbara Fought

Need the goods tucked in some government document? Or wonder if there is something in someone’s file cabinet or computer archive that will explain what’s going on? Busy reporters have little time to draft and produce freedom of information requests … Read More →

Posted in Backgrounding for News Stories, Finding Stories | Leave a comment
Mar 07

Check that AP style: here’s help for politics

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Barbara Fought

You’re writing stories today about Super Tuesday.  And is it Super PAC or super PAC?  AP style calls for the latter. Well, it’s been, hm, how many years since I had my last AP style quiz in college. Okay, I … Read More →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Feb 29

New York Times + API + FEC = helpful election coverage

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Barbara Fought

When I grow up I want to be a CAR journalist, one who knows  several methods of computer-assisted reporting and how to mine data for great stories. One of the newest uses that impresses me is what the New York … Read More →

Posted in Databases | Leave a comment
Feb 22

Find when to tweet to reach most of your followers

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Barbara Fought

I love this new service I just learned about from @journtoolbox, Tweriod. It will tell you when most of your followers are online so you know best when to tweet.  Seems this is great inside information for news organizations and … Read More →

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Feb 16

How to debunk photos

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Barbara Fought

The death of Whitney Houston reminded me of the times I’ve seen supposed photos of a dead celebrity or gotten an email saying “see this terrorist bloodied and battered.” And they turn about to be hoaxes. Here’s a couple ways … Read More →

Posted in Searching | Leave a comment
Feb 08

Help for sportscasters in searching twitter

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Barbara Fought

Following up on yesterday’s post here is more help for sportscasters tracking the buzz.  Find out what’s being talked about the local team, coach or players on Twitter. Twitter advanced search can be filtered now in many ways.  I just came across … Read More →

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Feb 07

Help for sportscasters searching news about college sports team, player or coach

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Barbara Fought

As college basketball season heats up, you may be looking for more stories about the area team. One way to keep your finger on the pulse of discussion out there is to search blogs. BLOGS: Technorati is a search engine for … Read More →

Posted in Searching | Leave a comment
Jan 31

Can’t find that tweet?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Barbara Fought

You saw something on your twitter feed and want to go back to it, but can’t find it, right? Twitter’s search is helpful for  recent tweets. It’s changed its address in the last year. Point your browser to twitter.com/search, not … Read More →

Posted in Searching | Leave a comment
Jan 18

There’s more than Wikipedia for reference

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Barbara Fought

Okay so Wikipedia is temporary down today — What do you do?  While  Wikipedia can be a good pointer to information, you likely know that it isn’t always reputable and has sometimes had some bogus information.  So, as with all … Read More →

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