In the arena of environmental and energy news, things are seldom what they seem. Whether the news involves a government regulatory action or a science report, many willing to talk about it have a vested interest or a partisan slant. Too often, journalists have to be mere stenographers because publications push them to do several stories a day on subjects they know little about.

Help is on the way: a cool new tool called "Poligraft." Just paste in some text or the Web address of an online article, and within seconds Poligraft [2] supplies much of the missing context.

The mere mention of a Senator, for example, elicits a rundown on who his or her top campaign contributors are and which industries give the most. A lobbyist's name invokes a rundown on which politicians he/she gives money to. Names of organizations are annotated with contributions they've made.

The Poligraft system was developed by the Sunlight Foundation (which has a back room full of talented coders), the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and the Center for Responsive Politics.

It can save reporters hours of work — but it is not perfect yet. While it does well with political money, it is less adept in the murkier worlds of think tanks, paid pundits, issue groups, and "experts."