Reporter's Toolbox

By EDITORS OF THE SEJOURNAL

 When SEJ decided last year to survey members about which SEJ programs they value most, a funny thing happened – we discovered that many of the programs most popular among some members aren’t even on the radar screen for others. In fact, in com- ments at the end of the survey, some members expressed a desire for programs ... that SEJ already offers.

We also heard from many members who seemed in responding to the survey to express doubt about how much SEJ can help them. For example:

InvestigateWest's Robert McClure and Jason Alcorn explain how to spin the local angle about how parks built or improved with money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund are increasingly being illegally privatized or converted to something other than parks — including sharing their searchable database of almost 40,000 park grants.

Find a rich collection of online resources courtesy of the National Library of Medicine and others, compiled by SEJ member and NLM technical information specialist Philip Wexler.

Amanda Hickman explains how the web-based tool DocumentCloud, founded in 2009 with a Knight News Challenge grant, lets journalists engage with the public and knowledgeable sources. Use it to analyze, annotate, and publish the documents behind your reporting.

Author Cynthia Barnett explains water-use truths and fallacies, offers tips for investigating water projects proposed for your audience area, and reports how some of the country’s most progressive engineers and local governments are showing that it’s absolutely possible to live with far less water.

Naomi Lubick writes about the common plight of procrastination and offers helpful tips to better manage your time and energy. Don't put it off — read it now!

Jim Schwab, manager of the American Planning Association’s Hazards Planning Research Center, writes in Part 1 of a two-part series about the dynamics of recovery, silver linings, and post-disaster journalism.