Daily Tools

Freelancing from home? No access to wires? No problem.

Math is hard! A crash course in numbers for reporters. After that, quiz yourself with a math test for journalists. And avoid the five math pitfalls.

Think of it as an Infomart for American newspapers. The IRE offers a database, searchable by topic, of 19,000 investigative feature stories published in newspapers across the country. Or search almost 2,000 technical reporting tipsheets.

Sometimes it seems like professor Alistair Roberts is the sole person preventing this country from morphing into a police state. The unsung access-to-info hero archives all FOI requests monthly in a comprehensive database. Get results faster. Raise more hell.

Yet another disgraced corporation purges its Web site of CEO bios? Resurrect the info you need on deadline with The Wayback Machine.

Crib notes and links to search engines, sources, directories, and reporting shortcuts. In sum, a smarter surfing manifesto from a Columbia j-prof.

Shock the desk and do your own number crunching — calculate inflation rates, make metric and currency conversions. All this and more at Measure for Measure.

Bourque.com is the Drudge Report of Canada. Links to all major news outlets in the country, all in one place.

ProfNet puts you in touch with all those professors you avoided in college —this time on deadline, on your terms.

Scan news from 16,000 sources by subject at NewsNow including breaking Canadian news. Consider it your personal news ticker.

If it's made headlines in national papers around the globe, its made it on to the World Press Review.

More reasons to love Google (pre-IPO, let it be said): you can now use everybody's default search engine directly to find word definitions, phone books,, stock quotes, weather forecasts and flight information. Here's how.

A quick search on Truth or Fiction or Snopes can save you from turning urban legends into next-day's news.

Avoid inadvertent plagarism and credit that catchphrase to its source with a quick search of Bartlett's quotations.

Find biographical info online from 25,000 notables. But beware the U.S. celebrity slant: Brad Pitt was a recent #1 search.

Thirty-two tomes of Encylcopedia Britannica at your fingertips without the tree-death guilt.

Reporting Resources

OneWorld is a portal for news from the non-profit sector on international sustainable development, human rights and social justice issues.

The Gallup Brain is a searchable database of more than 60 years of public opinion polls.

In Canada, the Canadian Opinion Research Archive collects similar survey data dating back to the 1970s. For political and social science poll data try here.

A searchable directory of more than 27,000 newspapers and magazines makes AllYouCan Read.com as good as its word.

Can't separate politicians' facts from the fibs? The U.S. site Factcheck.org sets the record straight by monitoring overzealous campaigners.

Reporting on the rapid-fire pace of media murders and acquisitions is a baffling business, made easier by a media holdings crib sheet.

DiversityWatch puts ethnocultural-bias under the microsope. It's got the best set of diversity resources in Canada: cultural FAQs, stats, headlines, links to sources and a glossary to help reporters avoid cultural insensitivity.

A searchable database of international newspapers from Argentina to Zaire.

If you should ever feel compelled to voluntarily peruse a stack of grad student theses, now there's a way to act on that bizarre compulsion.

Scouting for a truly objective source? PR Watch's Disinfopedia is a directory of special interest groups beholden to big business. Also, info on PR firms' cagey corporate campaigns and lobbyists' clients.

Don't die on assignment. The International News Safety Institute updates travel advisories and war casualties to make sure foreign correspondents come back home.

Writing for the National Post? American urban statistics at a glance.

Journalists at Your Service is a tool box portal for international reporters covering the EU.

Media Tenor International offers review and analysis of global news trends.

International Fredom of Expression Exchange is the place for press freedom alerts.

Professional Development

The CAJ gets no respect. Only a fraction of Canadian journalists pay dues, but many more use its services and listservs. They do great things. Yes, we know reporters are lone wolves, but do yourself a favour and join already.

Your job's tough, but at least you weren't jailed over your last column. Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the media version of Amnesty International, will help put it into perspective.

PWAC is as fun to say as PFLAG, but don't confuse the two. The Periodical Writers Association of Canada is a support group of sorts for freelancers — there to back you up if you don't get a kill fee.

The Writers' Union of Canada is rife with people who make things up for a living. But they sponsor lucrative prizes for non-fiction — reason enough for journalists to mingle with fabulists. Excellent resources for reporters shopping books too.

On that note, The Writers' Trust also offers two awards for non-fiction books — one for political writing another for literary non-fiction.

If you get riled when you see Realtor lowercased or further used where farther should go, you can find other people who care at The Editors Association of Canada.

The Canadian Magazine Publishers Association holds occaisional magazine boot camps and offers mag start-up advice for those who can't think of a better way to fritter away a buy-out or a student loan.

Better yet, the CMPA runs MagoMania.com, a database of trade and commercial mags, and a godsend for freelancers.

The Society for News Design offers layout deskers design tips, workshops and job resources.

American/ International Journalism Organizations

Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. What isn't here? A massive resource centre on investigative reporting, beats and writing, links to recently published investigative work, educational material, FOI news — and those are just the freebies for non-members.

Society of Professional Journalists has a mandate to promote FOI reporting and offers a wide array of resources including essays on ethics, an FOI tipsheet listing all areas of gov't the law applies to, and excellent diversity resources including a seachable database of diverse experts and advice on how to diversify newsrooms and reporting.

The European Journalism Centre offers a wealth of quality news and international reporting resources, whether or not "BRUSSELS—" is your dateline.

The Poynter Institute Online snagged the tagline "everything you need to be a better journalist" first, but it deserves it.

Pew Center for Civic Journalism exists "to report on civic journalism experiments around the country" and posts abstracts of past civic projects.

The Institute for Interactive Journalism The J-Lab offers links, publications and thoughtful essays on the future of digital, on-line and interactive journalism. Some fascinating glimpses of the future of news.

The International Women's Media Foundation sponsors awards, leadership training, fellowships and professional development seminars aimed at promoting women in and propelling them through the ranks of media organizations. It also offers an array of publications and online resources to help women succeed in the newsroom.

The International Journalists' Network offers a global reporting primer with a database of media law around the world and codes of ethics from foreign newsrooms and unions, not to mention an A to Z directory of international journalism prizes.

The World Editors Forum has launced Editorsweblog.org to try and bring senior newsroom management into the 21st century.

The Institute for Media, Peace ans Security is a gateway for conflict and media issues.

Awards and Fellowships

The CBC Newsworld Joan Donaldson Scholarship offers eight keen j-students the chance to fetch Mansbridge's coffee. Just kidding. A wildly competitive entree into the halls of the Mother Corp.

The Politics and Journalism Semester offers 13 j-students intent on political reporting the chance to spend 16-weeks reporting with the Washington bureaus of major news outlets. There are stipends and mentors and Canadians often make the cut.

The Lotta Hitschmanova Emerging Journalist Award is named for the founder of the USC international aid agency, and this $1,000 award recognizes outstanding journalism on the developing world or development issues.

The Edward Goff Penny Award goes to under-25 reporters working full-time in Canadian daily and weekly newsrooms. Yes, you'd think they'd have trouble finding anyone under 35, but hey, at least the competition for the $2,500 prize is light.

CAJ/CNW Student Award of Excellence awards aspiring journalists still in school for trying to take their student work to the next level.

Calling all foreign correspondent hopefuls. The CAJ Student Dateline Hong Kong Fellowship provides j-school students with a chance to spend a week in Hong Kong (travel and board included) polishing their skills in enterprise reporting.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Kaiser Media Internships in Urban Health Reporting offer summer internships (eleven print, three television) to young minority journalists interested in specializing in health reporting.

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Student Magazine Awards can turn your school magazine into an award-winning periodical.

New j-grads can test their chops abroad in Finland in the Foreign Correspondents' Program scholarships, which cover travel, room and board for young journalists to work for a month in Helsinki and learn more about the country.

Golden Key International Honour Society Literary Acheivement Awards grant members' winning non-fiction and feature entries a $1,000 prize.

The annual Michele Landsberg Award, so named for the Toronto Star's uber-feminist columnist, recognizes outstanding feminist work by a woman (16-30) in media, and/or activism in Canada.

THIS Magazine's Annual Creative Non-Fiction Prize offers a chance at publication and a $250 prize for literary and personal journalism.

The Commonwealth Press Union's Fellowship in International Journalism provides students funding to complete a Master's degree in international journalism at the City University in London, England.

Mid-Career

The Canada Council for the Arts does more than keep poets off welfare. Literary non-fiction writers are also eligible for creative writing grants.

The CAJ Awards for Investigative Journalism cover newspapers big and small, television, radio and photojournalism.

National Newspaper Awards is as close as us pencils get to red carpet. The lights! The glamour!

Reporters in low-budget newsrooms can still man a one-person Hong Kong bureau for a week courtesy of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office through the CAJ Dateline Hong Kong Fellowship .

North American Travel Journalists Association Awards dole out prizes to travel journalists in 22 categories. The winners receive — wait for it — free trips.

CAJ/CIDA Fellowship takes five mid-career journalists from regions across Canada and sends them to Africa for up to 15 days to research and report on social, political and development issues.

The Society of Environmental Journalists' Awards for Reporting on the Environment honour outstanding reporting on the environment, awarding nine $1,000 prizes.

The Harry Brittain Fellowship, offered by The Commonwealth Press Union, brings up to 12 commonwealth mid-career journalists to the UK for a six-week training course in British media practices.

Aventis Pasteur Medal for Excellence in Health Research Journalism is awarded by Canadians for Health Research to the author of the best print journalism articles on health research.

The Justicia Awards for Excellence in Journalism are sponsored by the Canadian Bar Association to recognize outstanding print or broadcast stories on the justice system or legal issues.

USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship Program gets arts writers and editors out of the daily grind and into a three-week program designed to generate new ideas to refresh beat reporting.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's new Kurt Schork Awards for International Journalism recognize international reporting on conflict or cross-border issues with two $10,000 prizes.

The Peter Gzowski Literacy Award of Merit, presented by the ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation, honours a journalist whose work raises public awareness of literacy issues.

The Donner/CJFE Journalist At Risk Fellowship brings a deserving mid-career foreign journalist to Toronto's Massey College for a year of academic study.

The Nash Prize is awarded to a journalist with three or more years of experience to study law, public policy, technology, etc. to enhance their reporting. The Canadian Journalism Foundation also offers the Greg Clark Internship, which lets working journalists spend time behind the scenes of sectors they cover.

Asia-Pacific Awards for Excellence in Environmental Journalism and Photo Journalism is an initiative of the Asia-Pacific Forum of Environmental Journalists supporting quality coverage of environmental issues in the region by local journalists.

The Heywood Broun Awards, sponsored by the Newspaper Guild, recognize individual achievement of newspaper, magazine and broadcast reporters.

Senior

The Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership sponsors a four-month research fellowship designed to promote the study of ethical issues in government, business, public policy, policing, etc. (Ethical leadership in business?)

The Donner Prize: Best Book on Canadian Public Policy has upped its prize — awarding $30,000 to the work it deems the best book on Canadian public policy and $5,000 to the five books selected as finalists — more than most advances.

Kathy Gannon, Kim Bolan, Christiane Amanpour. Just a few of the women the International Women's Media Foundation have honoured with the Courage in Journalism Awards. The awards recognize international women journalists who have dislayed exemplary strength of character by doing their jobs under difficult or dangerous circumstances.

Knight-Wallace Fellowship has space for four international mid-career journalists to take a sabbatical year of study at the University of Michigan, to work on a book, or just take classes and gain a fresh perspective.

Past recipients of the Canadian Journalism Foundation's Lifetime Acheivement Award include former Chatelaine editor Doris Anderson, Maclean's Peter C. Newman and CBC documentary producer Mark Starowicz.

The prestigious Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy funds a senior journalists' year-long research project into a large-scale public policy issue such as poverty, unemployment, immigration or child care.

The Michener Awards for Meritorious Public Service in Journalism recognize and promote superior investigative reporting by a news organization on civic issues that enhances the public's right to know.

The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for mature journalists funds a four-month study leave to pursue university programs in Canadian fields.

Watchdogs on the Web

The Ryerson Review of Journalism is the only media-watchdog feature magazine published in the country. (No, Frank does not count.)

The Thunderbird is the on-line j-zine voice of UBC J-grads, updated twice yearly.

The Online Journalism Review has been turning an analytical eye to Internet journalism since before weblogs were blogs.

Alright, it's hideous to look at, but the American Journalism Review is one-stop shopping for U.S. media monitoring.

The Columbia Journalism Review is a spare site, but offers archives of past issues, j-tools and world-wide media listings.

Inside Track

Oh, alright, this is really just gossip. But how else to uphold the time-honoured journalistic tradition of being fascinated with ourselves?

Frank Magazine.com has been redesigned, but the news moles on its boards are as cruel as ever. Herewith, a Frank caveat: "Freedom of the press is for those who own one. Freedom to snipe at the press is for those who come here. "

The newly minted, unemployed j-grad set can find solace on Jeff Gaulin's discussion boards. The rest of us can watch posters come to the realization their degree means nothing– in realtime!

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