The Craft of Research

• Lesson handout

Points of emphasis for critical thinking:

1. Backgrounding people is crucial.  For example, you never want to write a friendly story about someone, only to be burned by not doing proper backgrounding.
2. Never trust any person—no matter who it is—as your sole source of information, even about him or her self…and sometimes ESPECIALLY about him or her self (e.g. people lying about their age).  Always verify!
3. Last but not least: there’s some information generated about people that won’t be available.  As an example, consider Presidential candidates.  What information about them is released only at their discretion?

Points of emphasis for critical thinking:

• Experts should be one of your first thoughts as a source of information on any subject.  They can lend authority, accuracy, balance and credibility to your stories.  They may also refer you to other sources.
• One good way to find experts is to do a Nexis or Factiva search on your story subject and see who has spoken on the topic in the past.
• Another way is to seek out local or national organizations related to the topic.  One of my favorite tools is the Encyclopedia of Associations, an “old-fashioned” print resource available in our Research Center.  Online, you can use the school’s Associations Unlimited account or the universally accessible Gateway to Associations.
• Government experts can also be useful.  Any New York City reporter should have the latest copy of the Green Book.
• Many colleges and universities provide access to faculty and staff experts via their web sites, including CUNY and other local schools.   There are also web sites specifically devoted to connecting journalists with experts, such as ProfNet and the Yearbook of Experts.
• Sources need not always be subject experts.  Acquaintances of people or witnesses to events would be prime examples.  ReferenceUSA is a great tool to find such sources.

Along with NYC.gov, the following resources may also help you compile information for your beat memo:

• American Community Survey (Census Bureau)
• Infoshare Online
• ReferenceUSA
• Board of Elections web sites for New York State and New York City

Note to my Craft I students: The lesson handout below is intended for International Reporting students, although you’re welcome to take a look, of course.

Note to International Reporting students: The following handout is more robust than my typical handout, but it’s a big world and I’ve got only one crack at you this semester, so I threw in the kitchen sink.  We’ll have time to review a handful of the resources in class, but you should check out the others as well.

• Lesson handout

• Lesson handout

Points of emphasis for critical thinking:

1. NYC.gov is going to be a (if not the) primary research source for your Community District.
2. Like almost all government web sites, the bulk of “the good stuff” is buried deep within NYC.gov.  Never think the home page of a government web site is going to be intuitive.  You need to dig.
3. Do you necessarily trust every piece of information released by the government?

What are Nexis and Factiva?  They are commercial competitors that archive the backfiles of thousands of publications, including newspapers, magazines, newsletters, media transcripts and others, such as major blogs. 

• The difference between the two services is not significant.
• Since it’s owned by Dow Jones, Factiva has the exlusive online full text content of the DJ wires, WSJ, Barron’s and Reuters wires.
• The command languages are different, but the functions are the same.

 Using the services–key points:

• It is expected that this type of background work should be performed for every work assignment to bring context and details to the story. 
• It should bring to light any article that’s already been written on the topic, person, event or company. 
• For the most part, these publications have been vetted for errors. 
• This is searching the deep web, that which doesn’t show up when search engines crawl the web.  Cannot get this stuff on Google, for the most part.
• It’s all tagged/indexed consistently, resulting in more precise results.

The Census Bureau has one of the most valuable and densely-packed web sites you’ll encounter.  Like NYC.gov, it seems you’ll constantly find new information there that will amaze you with its obscurity and level of detail.  Below are some of my favorite Census Bureau pages, with thanks to fellow research colleague Barbara Oliver for her assistance.

• First and foremost is the American FactFinder, which includes fast access to fact sheets for your community, as well as annual American Community Survey data.  The latter provides the best place to get estimates since the last decennial census was undertaken in 2000.  You definitely should familiarize yourself with how to navigate this!
• State and County QuickFacts provides easy access via a map for a quick look at some broad statistics for states, counties and cities.
• The Statistical Abstract is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.  Note that past years of the publication are also available.
• Facts for Features & Special Editions consist of collections of statistics from the Census Bureau’s demographic and economic subject areas intended to commemorate anniversaries or observances or to provide background information for topics in the news.
• Also worth a look are the United States and World PopClocks, and Frequently Occurring Surnames From Census 2000.  Check to see how common your name is!

Additionally, it’s important to note that there are many excellent “third party” sites that aggregate Census Bureau data.  Below are a few of my favorites in that category.

• The New York City Department of City Planning’s population page has some excellent resources, including American Community Survey data and a map delineating Community Districts and Census Bureau PUMAs.
• Infoshare Online and Social Explorer are two subscription sources we have that I’ve mentioned both this semester and last.  Take advantage of CUNY access!
• The University of Virginia Library has a great Historical Census Browser with data from 1790 to 1960.  Need slave and slaveholder statistics?  (Ugh.)  This is one place to easily find them.

For today’s lesson, we have two handouts: the first is the Brooklyn immigration project primer from Jere Hester, and the second is a lengthy list of immigration resources from my Research Methods colleague Barbara Gray (with assistance from Barbara Oliver).

Of course, the key resources on Jere’s handout are the Community District Profiles, the list of Brooklyn Community Districts, and most importantly, the New York City Department of Education page.

Barbara Gray’s handout begins with several good articles for you to read.  I would suggest the most noteworthy for you to check out is the seven-part Remade in America series currently underway at the Times.  Don’t miss all the bells and whistles accompanying the main articles.  You’ll see more each Sunday until the project is finished, so keep looking.  Excellent stuff!

She also lists numerous statistical resources, and tells me that the Population Reference Bureau’s Immigration Data Matters report in the “U.S. Agencies and Statistics” section is a particularly useful guide to stats nationwide.  Additionally, she suggested I stress that some oft-cited immigration-related organizations–such as the Center for Immigration Studies–often have an agenda, hence her FactCheck.org link.  So be careful.

Barbara Oliver recommends the New York City Department of Education’s Office of English Language Learners report as a great source re: schools and recent immigrants, Gotham Gazette’s “The Citizen” page and the handout’s experts section.

What sources do I recommend?  Definitely the Department of Homeland Security’s Yearbook of Immigration Statistics listed in last week’s federal government handout.  Also, Infoshare Online, RAND New York, NYCdata and the New York State Statistical Yearbook, all of which I had listed in my Craft I cops and crime handout for different statistics.  Note that the information contained within is dated to varying degrees, however.

• Lesson handout

Points of emphasis for critical thinking:

1. As you may remember from elementary school, there are three branches of the federal government–executive, legislative and judicial.  For the purposes of this lesson, we’ll be concentrating mainly on executive branch offices and resources.  (The judicial branch was covered in the fall during the Craft I courts lesson.)
2. The executive branch is comprised of cabinet-level departments (e.g. Secretary of State heads State Department, Secretary of Defense heads Defense Department, etc.).  There are also various bureaus, agencies, administrations, commissions, boards and offices.  Some of these (e.g. Census Bureau, FAA, FBI, FEMA) are part of the executive branch departments.  Others (e.g. CIA, EPA, FCC, FDIC, FEC, NASA, NTSB, SEC) are independent of them.
3. As is the case with NYC.gov, there are many federal government resources and databases not easily found from the main pages of sites, and even if you luck out and find them via a Google search, the information contained within rarely can be found without going to the resource and database pages themselves.  Thus, the more you familiarize yourself with them, the better.
4. Among the most useful federal government resources are those provided by the Census Bureau, which we’ll discuss more during a separate lesson later in the semester.  There are also great databases related to labor, occupational safety, campaign finance, education, health, transportation, crime and business.  See this lesson’s handout for more details.

Points of emphasis for critical thinking:

1. I continue my semester-long mission to convey the value of Nexis and Factiva.  Both provide basic company information.
2. Two other good commercial databases for company information that we have access to at school are Hoover’s and Mergent.
3. What about company annual reports (and the like)?  For the “PR version,” you can set up a free account with Annual Report Service or try AnnualReports.com or even try a company’s web site, but caveat emptor.  For the various reports public companies are required to file with the government, such as a 10-K and 10-Q, use the Securities and Exchange Commission web site, where you can find information like the number of stock shares and company value, among many other things.
4. What about non-profits?  Guidestar is the place to go, particularly for annual form 990 filings.  Register for free.  Also, Foundation Center has some older 990s for free that Guidestar requires a fee-based premium account to access.
5. Need the latest business news, quotes, etc.?  Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN Money, Google Finance, MarketWatch, The Street and Yahoo Finance are there for you.
6. A few notable reference sources: Currency Converter, Forbes lists, the Occupational Outlook Handbook (from BLS), N.Y.S. Local Area Unemployment, the N.Y.S. Business Directory and ReferenceUSA, the last of which can help you find the largest companies in your Community District!

• Recent research project: I needed to compile a spreadsheet using information from the FDIC’s bank failures page.