storyful

How to stalk a person online?

Last night we had a guest speaker - John Wihbey, the editor of Journalist’s Resource.org project at the Shorenstein Center on the Media, Politics & Public Policy. During the two hour course, he had show us some very powerful sites to stalk/track down a person/expert for clearly "work" reasons as a journalist. note: this is not creepy at all.

Spokeo, according to its website, Spokeo is a people search engine that organizes White Pages listings, Public Records and Social Network Information to help you safely find & learn about people.

type in the name, if your lucky enough, spokeo can find this person's email, address and phone number.

 http://www.spokeo.com

Since everything is about network and social media now, its also important to find out whats trending online, or who is following who on tweeter and their common interest.

Topys, search website base on social medias. It's a certified tweeter partner and maintains a comprehensive index of tweets since 2006. Its a powerful up-to-date information source. 

http://topsy.com

Twiangulate, is a tool for search, analytics and mapping of connections between Twitter friends and followers, according to its official website.

http://twiangulate.com/search/

Now, we all love social media, but the source of the social media very often is civilian, the information they posed is not verified.  Therefore, "Storyful" was created and its only function of business is to help client verify the content posted on social media.

http://storyful.com

But keep in mind,  journalists need to find solid facts, date base or experts in the filed of the article to add credibility to your story. Doing the job as an informer to the public.

google scholar/Microsoft academic search/BU database

Also, if  its a piece related to medical, injuries..etc. PubMed can come in handly

PubMed

About budget or funding of the US politics or the government, check out 

Opensecreat.org

Public records of NGOs

Foundation center

For people that wants to do invetigative reporting or online news. Three websites can not be missed.

Online News Association/ Poynter/Investigative Reporters and Editors