Others have talked about how handy computers are at creating secondary streams of information - that is, how quickly and easily information that might not make it on the air can be put on a Web page for the audience to see. 

It seems that so far as the sometimes-forgotten newsroom function of gathering news goes, the PC can be a powerful tool.  It can track down information in seconds that a skilled researcher might take days to unearth; it can quickly locate facts that once would have taken hit-or-miss calls to busy sources; and in some cases, the PC can even find the background information that will enable a story to be fleshed out and put into context. 

Actually, computers have been serving these functions for over a decade.  It has long been possible to do these things, but it was expensive.  What's new these days is the strengthening trend toward what computer advertising agencies like to call "free stuff," content that is publicly available without cost (beyond your computer equipment and Internet connection). 

For those already plugged in to the digital flow, consider this a compendium of useful sources you may not have otherwise known about.  For those who haven't made the leap, maybe it's time. 

While the Internet is clearly the richest assembly of information in the history of the planet, it's not organized very well (at least from the point of view of anyone trying to make sense of it).  That comes partially from its anarchic history, and partially from the fact that its founders never counted on this kind of growth.  It's so jumbled, in fact, that there's a whole growing subculture devoted to giving it shape and assigning it order. 

"Search engines" are the card catalogues of the Internet, places that attempt to give shape to the data and provide ways to find the things that are hidden away in the hodgepodge of 0s and 1s.  There are hundreds of them in existence, some better than others.  The trick is knowing which is the best to use for the exact kind of information you're trying to track down. 

Day in and day out, there are three broad seas of data that can be pumped from a PC into a TV news operation.  (There are other reservoirs of data as well, but they're more specialized - and thus better left for another time.)  The three are: 

• Finding People
• Finding Facts
• Finding Background

Four 11   http://www.Four11.com/
Bigfoot  http://www.bigfoot.com/
Switchboard http://www.switchboard.com/ 

The advantages of tracking down phone numbers by computer are that the time and expense of obtaining, and the space for maintaining, phone directories shifts from you and your TV station to some faceless company on the World Wide Web.  The disadvantage is that you never know how up-to-date the information you're getting really is.  Another disadvantage is that what the online world calls "privacy concerns" have kept basic telephone information from being criss-crossed.  Though it's an easy function to program a computer to perform, allowing users to find a phone number from an address or a name from a phone number brought many objections.  (The objectors probably didn't know that we - and a whole bunch of other businesses - have been leasing "reverse directories" on paper for decades.) 

There are probably more facts on the Internet than there are phone numbers.  The problem online (as in life) is finding them, and then figuring out which are the best and the most relevant.  The best tools for finding them tend to be general-purpose indices, computerized lists that will guide you to sources. 

Yahoo!      http://www.yahoo.com/ 
New Riders WWW Yellow Pages http://www.mcp.com/nrp/wwwyp/ 
Magellan     http://www.mckinley.com/ 

Of these, the granddaddy of the trade is Yahoo!  It's fast, it's relatively thorough, and its links seem to have the highest rate of connecting.  (Bad links, usually because they're outdated, are the scourge of the search-engine business.)  It finds broad subjects.  Enter "child abuse" as the search terms, and Yahoo! brings back links to five of its own categories (which are invariably divided into subcategories) and 156 actual sites on the WWW.  Try "pitbulls" (once a staple of the late-night news in many markets), and Yahoo! brings back seven hits (no categories and seven sites), including the information that the actual name of the breed is "American Pit Bull Terrier."  Enter all those words, and Yahoo! retrieves two subject categories and 17 specific sites. 

Looking for something a little more detailed?  Something not easily defined by a subject area but which you can describe by specific words that might appear in the text?  The tool is a full-powered search engine.  Need some background on something like the Brady Bill, try one of these: 

HotBot   http://www.hotbot.com/ 
AltaVista   http://www.altavista.digital.com/ 
Lycos   http://www.lycos.com/ 

A slight confession: we used some fancy "search logic" to focus the search somewhat.  Here are the results in raw numbers on the hypothetical hunt: 

But what does any search really yield?  Clickable lists of URLs, the addresses of the World Wide Web.  While it's all "information," some of it is higher quality, some of it is lower quality, and some of it is out-and-out wrong. 

Because something is posted on the Internet doesn't make it right, or accurate, or true.  There's no verification in the online world, no room full of digital fact-checkers who blue-pencil every assertion and use their best efforts to track down the truth.  In the world of information, the Internet is much closer in reliability to an anonymous telephone call than it is to the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  In the end, high-tech though the Internet may be, it has to be treated with the same degree of suspicion as any other news source. 
 

For Further Browsing: 

NewsProNet    http://www.newspronet.com/news/index.html 
Newsroom Resources 

"Finding Data on the Internet"  http://nilesonline.com/data/ 
(A Journalist's Guide) 

World Wide Web Virtual Library: Journalism
Edited by John Makulowich http://www.cais.com/makulow/vlj.html 

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 PAUL SKOLNICK has "been there" in broadcast journalism, usually in an award-winning capacity: investigative reporter, investigative producer, assignment editor, writer, field producer.  He is the managing editor of Thunder & Lightning News Service in Belleair Bluffs, FL.