Journalism requires multiple research tools and strategies to gather a variety of quality sources.
Information sources, both second and first hand, can be found in an increasing number of places and can be published or unpublished. Journalists know that finding quality information requires repeated attempts using an assortment of online, physical, and human sources. Building a toolkit of flexible methods and multiple search strategies is key for reporters. Different sources, such as public records, government documents, subscription databases, social media, press releases, numeric data, and key witnesses, require different search strategies. Novice reporters rely on familiar search processes, such as freely available search engines, and they rarely look beyond the first page of results. Expert journalists take time to develop keywords, create search strings, persist when they face search challenges, and use advanced search techniques and tools during their quest for information. Experts also search for and identify human sources relevant to a story, and seek out diverse perspectives for their reporting. While novice journalists are unsure what to do after using a public search engine, experts engage in a search process that can take them from their laptop to the courthouse, to a library archive all in the same day—and they are prepared and well positioned to consider how each type of source employed in their reporting might inform a story.
Journalists who are developing their information literate abilities
Journalists who are developing their information literate abilities