On The Beat: Covering Business
IRE Miami 2008
Laura Lorek
Senior Writer
San Antonio Express-News
LLorek@express-news.net
210-250-3243
David Evans
Senior Writer
Bloomberg Markets Magazine
323-782-4242
davidevans@bloomberg.net
Top Sites for Mining Business Information
Social networking sites for source development and idea harvesting
Twitter – This is a micro-blogging site in which people type or Twitter 140 character max messages from a cell phone or the Web. You follow people and they follow you. You can find people to follow at http://whoshouldifollow.com/ This is a good site for business writers because more and more business executives, employees and companies are twittering. It’s become the insiders’ network to find out information as it happens. Other Twitter-related sites worth checking out include Tweetscan.com and Summize.com where you can search by word to find out what people are talking about. And twitterlocal.com will let you know about everyone in a geographical area twittering.
Facebook.com – Nearly 70 million people have created profiles on this site. Myspace.com has more than 100 million profiles. They are great places to find out details on people. But beware that sometimes people are not who they claim to be. So double check facts gathered at these sites with another source.
Linkedin.com – Many executives and company employees have created profiles on this site. It’s more business oriented than MySpace.com or Facebook.com. It’s an excellent way to build a network of trusted sources. Also for profiles, it’s a great place to find people who are close to your subject.
Other sites to keep an eye on include Ning at http://www.ning.com/ is a place for anyone to create a social network and it’s a great place to find people, www.classmates.com gives potential contacts for executive profiles and www.PeekYou.com is an online white pages with profiles on people by name or company.
The Ultimates allows you to search Internet resources including phone books, e-mail directories for people’s phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses at http://www.theultimates.com/
The telephone directory Anywho at www.anywho.com is helpful for doing reverse searches with a phone number to find out who it is registered and their address. It also provides a link to a map and directions. It does not work on cell phones.
Also check for company blogs and personal blogs by going to Technorati.com to search by name or company.
To find information on the board of directors of 100 major U.S. corporations check out the social networking site www.theyrule.net. It’s information stems from 2004 so it’s already out of date with so many mergers and acquisitions. But it’s an interesting model that focuses on relationships.
Government sites
National Association of Attorneys General’s Web site at www.naag.org includes links to Web sites, addresses and telephone numbers of all 50 Attorneys General.
The National Association of State Securities Regulators at http://www.nasaa.org
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, known as FINRA, at www.finra.org has information on broker’s registration and disciplinary history
To find your Secretary of State’s Web site visit http://www.statelocalgov.net Many state Web sites allow you to search for corporation names and their owners and executives.
General Accounting Office at http://www.gao.gov is the investigative arm of Congress. You can subscribe for reports on a variety of topics at the site. They are sent daily via e-mail alerts with links to the reports.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has a searchable database of patents at http://patents.uspto.gov/
Public Access to Court Electronics Records, known as PACER at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov allows access to Federal, Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts. It costs just 7 cents per page.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission web site at www.sec.gov provides access to public company filings including Form S-1 IPO registration statements, 10Ks, 10Q, 8Ks, 13-Ds and Proxies in the Edgar database. It also has a litigation section listing actions taken against companies, executives, brokers, investment advisers.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics http://stats.bls.gov/ has all kinds of labor statistics such as wage information on national, state and metro areas and the U.S. Census at www.census.gov provides finance data for the largest cities in the U.S.. and other geographical demographic statistics.
FedStats lists statistics from more than 100 government agencies at http://www.fedstats.gov/
Other useful sites for business data on publicly traded companies
The Austin-based Association of Certified Fraud Examiners at http://www.acfe.com/ is focused on reducing fraud and white collar crime. It also has a fraud museum detailing rip offs throughout history.
Some of the best sites for financial information on publicly traded companies include http://Finance.yahoo.com http://www.bloomberg.com www.morningstar.com, www.thestreet.com and www.economy.com
For details on private companies
Hoover’s, Dun & Bradstreet
http://www.hoovers.com Hoovers has thousands of company profiles including physical addresses, phone numbers, Web sites, key financials, company executives, competitors and related news and press releases. Dun & Bradstreet at http://www.dnb.com/us/ has information on more than 38 million businesses in the United States.
LexisNexis at www.lexis.com and Dow Jones’ Factiva at www.factiva.com are wonderful resources to check industry and trade publications as well as magazine and newspaper articles for background information. Both are pay services.
For information on nonprofit organizations
Guidestar.org provides IRS data from 990 tax documents filed by nonprofits. You can search for those in your area.
The Internal Revenue Service at www.irs.gov also provides 990 tax documents on nonprofits. But you find everything the IRS publishes here about tax returns.
Other helpful sites include National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy at www.ncrp.org, the Chronicle of Philanthropy at www.philanthropy.com, Council of Foundations at www.cof.org, the Foundation Center at http://fdncenter.org, the National Center for Charitable Statistics at http://nccs.urban.org , the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability at www.ecfa.org and the Internet Nonprofit Center at www.nonprofits.org.
Business Journalism Association sites with helpful resources
Investigative Reporters & Editors at www.IRE.org has more than 2,000 tip sheets and if you plug in business you will find several useful business resources from past conferences. This site also has reprints of past investigations in its story database. It’s free to search for members.
The Society of American Business Editors and Writers at www.sabew.org provides handouts and links on a variety of business topics. The site contains tip sheets and other materials for better business reporting and writing. Under resources, it also lists links to external organizations helpful in business investigations.
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University at http://www.businessjournalism.org does day-long seminars around the country that provide tons of information on investigating businesses. They also have online tutorials and seminars. You’ll also find business glossaries and tips on business writing and other helpful resources.
A journalist’s guide to the Internet at http://reporter.umd.edu/
by Christopher Callahan, dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
Other useful sites
Research groups such as Jupiter Research at www.jup.com, Gartner Group at http://www.gartner.com/ and Forrester Research at http://www.forrester.com have reports on various trends and industries. Also, Ibis World at http://www.ibisworld.com/ has reports on more than 700 industries and 8,000 companies. PR Newswire’s Profnet has a database of experts and also allows you to post queries directly to its members at https://profnet.prnewswire.com/
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