11 Sites Journalists Should Know
About Jeremy Caplan
Jeremy Caplan teaches Interactive Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and is a Contributor at Time Magazine. Follow Jeremy on Twitter. 
The list-making season gave us Vadim Lavrusik’s smart 8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist and John Thompson’s concise Ten Things Every Journalist Should Know in 2010. Poynter posted a lively list of 100 Things Journalists Should Never Do, and Adam Westbrook added a nice set of 10 Resolutions for Journalists in 2010. To round off the list of lists, I’ve got one more to offer up: 33 Sites Every Journalist Should Know.
The first 11 sites, below, are primarily for reading, gathering, organizing and managing information. For each site listed, I also suggest below a few related sites that I’ve found useful.
I put together the list as part of a workshop for the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism’s January Academy. I created a Delicious.com bookmarks page for the sites; for those who prefer old-fashioned paper, here is a free print-ready PDF I used as a handout, listing these first 11 sites. More to follow separately.
1. Google Reader
An inbox for RSS feeds, blog posts, pictures, videos and other materials
Also Try: feedly.com, bloglines.com, igoogle.com
2. Delicious
Save, organize and share links and discover new sites. Search by subject tags to find relevant pages
Also Try: Diigo.com, Publish2.com, Facette for Delicious
3. Evernote
Organize notes and Web research
Also Try: Google Docs, Zoho Notebook, Backpackit.com, MIT’s List.it
4. Instapaper
Save stories to read later
Also Try: Laterloop.com, readitlaterlist.com
5. Readability
Make articles and sites more legible
Also Try: Tidyread.com, printfriendly.com, readable-app.appspot.com
6. Alltop
Create a custom page for subjects you want to research or keep tabs on
Also Try: popurls.com, OriginalSignal.com, EuFeeds.eu, digg.com, stumbleupon.com
7. NY Times Prototypes
Innovative formats: How tomorrow’s journalism may look
Also Try: labs.digg.com, fastflip.googlelabs.com, SI tablet video – and one from Bonnier
8. The Internet Archive
Find open-source material and look back at historical Web pages
Also Try: creativecommons.org, flickr.com/commons, Life Magazine’s photo archive
9. Spezify
Track Your tracks. Monitor social media references to your work or topics you cover
Also Try: socialmention.com, google.com/alerts, viewzi.com, pipl.com
10. Scribd
Find and share documents and presentations on subjects of interest
Also Try: Slideshare.com, Docstoc.com, issuu.com
11. Muck Rack
Journalists on Twitter. Find colleagues and collaborators to track on Twitter. Monitor subjects.
Also Try: monitter.com, tweetdeck.com, wefollow.com
33 Sites Every Journalist Should Know - Part I
Please share your comments about these 11 sites or the alternatives listed.
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