JNet's Pick of the Week - Year 2000

Here is a selection of some of the best, most topical or just plain fun sites for journalists.

Click here for previous years of Picks of the Week, going back to 1997.

  • Pick of the week for  December 31, 2000:    Censored Year in review    Avoid the usual media summaries of the year and check out Project Censored (US) for insight into the stories we misssed, including  Yearbook 2000 for the previous year's top ignored stories and archives from the past decade.  For more media criticism, see JNet's Media page . Have a Happy New Year and stay with JNet for 2001 for more tips and tricks for using the web efficiently. 


  • Pick of the week for  December 24, 2000:    In the holiday season, give your self present. Apply for one of the many fellowships for journalists. New ones announced recently include the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships in the US, the Sheldon Chumir Foundation in Canada and the British association for the Advancement of Science. For a more complete list of fame and riches, see Sources in Canada and Virtual journalism List in the States. 

  • Pick of the week for  December 17, 2000:   Greeting Cards   It's time once again for JNet's annual pick of web sites to help you celebrate the holiday season. Send an electronic greeting to your favourite source, contact or Deep Throat. The best and cheapest (it's free) is Blue Mountain. American Greetings  runs an even more sophisticated site. Others include 123Greetings and Greeting-Cards.com.  


  • Pick of the week for  December 10, 2000:   Transparency International   One of the world's leading anti-corruption organizations is looking for journalists to contribute to its Global Corruption Index.  You can check the guidelines for submissions.  The site also offers a useful Corruption Index of countries and  Daily corruption news .

  • Pick of the week for  December 3, 2000:   Headline News Viewer   One of many new tools that allow you to read the news headlines you want.  Runs only on Internet Explorer, but it is a free download. For more news tickers, see JNet's Choose Your News    page.

  • Pick of the week for  November 26, 2000:   Excite Advanced News Search   A little known feature of the Excite portal allows you to search for news on web pages (newspapers and broadcasters) or newswires (AP, Reuters and others). You can also search for recent news photos.  Best for major international and US stories. For more news search tools, see JNet's News Search page.

  • Pick of the week for  November 19, 2000:    Atomica   The cool tool GuruNet has been renamed and improved. Download and install this device. Then simply click on any word on a web page and Atomica will get you dictionary entries, encyclopedia references, web searches and more. A glimpse at how the future of the web will work. For more downloads, check out JNet's Search Tools pages.

  • Pick of the week for  November 12, 2000:    IndyMedia   A wide ranging site from the heart of the anti-corporate resistance, these web pages come from across North America, Europe and other continents with news and views in several languages.  For more alternative views, check out JNet's Alternate News pages.


  • Pick of the week for  November 5, 2000:    US Politics   The final decision is still not in, but to keep tabs on George W. Bush, check out various Bush Watch sites. The best is Vote-Smart, which operates in conjunction with Open Secrets,  but also see Texas Fund Raising  and the more scatological BushWatch. The best way to search for all American government sites is with Google's special Uncle Sam page. For more US politics sites, see JNet's US Politics page.
  • Pick of the week for October 29, 2000:   WebBrain    They call it "the smartest way to see the web."  You can search by keyword but the category search is the real delight. A spider web of related subjects pops up, allowing you to narrow your search according to your interest. Easy, fun and uncluttered.  A newer way to find what you're looking for.   

  • Pick of the week for October 22, 2000:   Spy On It    This multi-task web site allows you to monitor web sites for any changes (you can even tell it to check for a specific word); to monitor top news sites (BBC, CNN, International Herald Tribune and Reuters) for any story you select; and even check to see what search engines are saying about you.  You can have your spy results sent to your email, your pager or to a web page.


  • Pick of the week for October 15, 2000:  Iwantmedia  A one-stop site for the latest news about the media business.  Latest developments in the industry, along with links to Media Columns , Media Gossip  and archives by subject. Plus an extensive jobs listing For more media news sites, see JNet's Media Page 

     

  • Pick of the week for October 8, 2000:    International War and Peace Reporting   For the latest news on press freedoms amidst the turmoil of Yugoslavia, check out the IWPR web site's special Balkans report.  Includes independent news from Serbia, plus many useful outside links.  See also their Filopovic File, about a journalist jailed for exposing Yugoslav war crimes. For more news direct from Belgrade, see B92, Free Serbia and JNet's Kosovo Page.


  • Pick of the week for October 1, 2000:    Speciality Search Engine  Need to find a search engine that looks only for science, medical or legal news? This page lists search engines by specialty.  There is also a separate page for General News search engines. Part of Danny Sullivan's excellent Search Engine Watch 


  • Pick of the week for September 24, 2000:    International Virtual Library:   More than 2000 links in 37 categories. A fast way to organize your international news search.   Including TV and Radio listings, news sources, and Magazines.

  • Pick of the week for September 17, 2000:    Olympic News  With all eyes focused down under, check out the host broadcaster's excellent Olympics news site. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has Olympics news  and background on its main Olympic Page.  For some of the best news on Australian politics, Indonesia, East Timor and other world events, see ABC's various news pages, including a main news page, World News, Indigenous Peoples and live radio newscasts.  For rival Olympics coverage, see a joint The Age/Sports Today web site with plenty of live video.
  • Pick of the week for September 10, 2000:    PersonalReader  Tired of trying to find the brightest, most insightful or fresh news on the web?  Let some professional journalists do some work for you. PersonalReader's slogan is "Your human guide to the Web's best content." They select the top web news of the day, and once a week, they update the best news on topics such as  Environment, Technology and Education. You can also subscribe to  free email delivery

  • Pick of the week for September 3, 2000:    Search Engine Power  It calls itself "the World's Largest Search Engine Directory" and with over 16, 465 listings, you are bound to find the special took you are looking for. Need a foreign language search tool? or a search engine that specializes in the US government?  Click on any category and try the various tools and search engines.  For more search engine tips, see JNet's Search Page

  • Pick of the week for August 27, 2000:    MagPortal   A quick -- and free -- way to do a search for current magazine articles about a subject. The extensive list of sources includes The Economist, Time, New Scientist, Forbes, Wired and many sports and cultural reviews. You can also save an article and retrieve it for later reference in the "My Articles" basket. For more ways to search for magazines, see JNet's Magazine Page

  • Pick of the week for August 20, 2000:    AudioBasket.com   Create your own daily radio news program by selecting choices from your favourite news sources, including the BBC, ABC, Bloomberg and Newsweek, plus a variety of hi-tech, business and sports news outlets.  This free service (registration required) allows to you to save an audiobasket to be played when you want.  You can also search the program for various keywords and limit your search to the last day, week or month. Click on "Audio finder." For more ways to find radio, see JNet's Radio page.


  • Pick of the week for August 13, 2000:    Inequality.org   Delightful treasure chest of startling information on income inequalities.  Includes a  news section , a list of experts and a quote gallery ("To turn $100 in $110 is work. To turn $100 million into $110 million is inevitable" from Edgar Bronfman). Produced by a network of journalists and founded by James Lardner, a writer for US News and World Report.

  • Pick of the week for August 6, 2000:     Bot007    A new way to search for news headlines. Simply put in a keywords or a phrase and results from various news sources appear. Be careful what words you choose: Bot 007 searches only the actual headlines, not the text of the articles.  An advanced search allows you to narrow by language and eventually by country.  For more ways to find news, check out JNet's News Search page.

  • Pick of the week for July 30,  2000:     Assignment Editor.com    Even if you're not a news assignment editor, you'll find these fast, clean list of links useful. You'll find photo searches, job sites, maps, research tools and an easy way to search the wires.  It's only drawback is that is almost entirely American, but there are some international links.  For more ways to find news, check out JNet's News Search page.


  • Pick of the week for July 23,  2000: World News.com    A fast, comprehensive way to search for news world wide, this amazing site offers various online "dailies" which offer news from a variety of reliable, international news sources.  Offers not only headlines, but also editorials, sports news, and business.  Plus you can search by country ( "EuropeDaily" or  "Middle east Daily" for example) and even by city (for example,"Chicago Daily" or "Belgrade Daily"     ).  And many story beats as well -- from EarthquakeNews  to world politics to rock 'n roll.  For more ways to search for news, see JNet's Search News Page.


  • Pick of the week for July 16,  2000: Policy.com      Get background analysis, documents and insight into some of burning international issues, everything from the UN's recent anti-diamond smuggling policy to Kosovo.  Global Hot Spots allows you to click on turbulent regions on the globe and get important news and views.  Issues library gives you detailed archives. Though it has a distinctly American flavour, the site still offers a world perspective.

  • Pick of the week for July 9,  2000:  7am.com   Wake up every morning to a wide selection of world news  from Reuters, BBC and other sources. Better still, you can download a free news ticker and have the headlines appear on your desktop.  7am.com is one of the better ways to personalize your news. For more tools like this, see JNet's Choose your News pages.

  • Pick of the week for July 2,  2000: Global Beat   Political and military analysis from the Center for War, Peace and the News Media at New York University.  This excellent site was a JNet Hot Pick last year as well and it still keeps on top of the news. The latest installment offers a new critical report about civilian casualties caused by NATO  in the Balkans, views on the developments in Korea and much more. . Includes an Experts Directory , Publications  and Events for Journalists, and  a helpful Links Directory


  • Pick of the week for June  25,  2000:   $20,000 Investigative Reporting Prize   The annual ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting -- a $20,000 first-place prize and up to five $1,000 finalist awards -- is up for grabs. Entries must be must be postmarked by July 15. Open to any journalist working in any medium on an international topic involving investigative reporting in at least two countries. Previous winners include a BBC TV documentary exposing international inaction to stop the genocide in Rwanda, and the Far Eastern Economic Review for tracking down former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot and conducting the first interview with him in 18 years. Sponsored by the International Consortium for Investigative Journalism and the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.  

  • Pick of the week for June  17,  2000:   Ixquick Metasearch    A new entry to the competitive field of multiple search engines (which let you use several search tools at once)  It's fast, accurate and allows you to use many of the best search tricks (plus, minus signs, quotes, etc). Plus, Ixquick offers a  News search of several top media sources. For other multiple search engines, see JNet's Multiple Search page.

  •  Pick of the week for June  11,  2000:    Search Engines Worldwide   Search engines and directories from all over the world. Organized by 130 countries alphabetically or by 5 continents.  For more ways to find information on countries, check out JNet's Government Page and JNet's Search Countries article.

  • Pick of the week for June  4,  2000:    ABYZ News  The most detailed way to search by country and region for print and electronic media outlets. Finds the smallest paper in the tiniest hamlet or village. Also searches for radio and TV.  See JNet's redesigned Papers page for three other excellent tools to find world publications and media.

  • Pick of the week for May 28,  2000:    TVNewsWeb  This newly-revamped UK site offers one-stop shopping for those in the TV news business.  Aside from late-breaking news, there is a job bank, a video archive where you can download broadcast-quality news reports, an uplink schedule for feeds and a look ahead which even non-broadcast journalists will enjoy.
    Special Pick : Last week saw the murder of two more journalists in Sierra Leone. See the Committee to Protect Journalists for a full report and background news on press freedoms in Sierra Leone.

  • Pick of the week for May 21,  2000:    Raging.com  AltaVista tries to compete with Google  -- still the best search engine on the web -- by creating a sleeker, faster, much more uncluttered search engine.  A good move, because search engine pages have become much too busy and confusing.  Raging.com offers all the usual AltaVista tricks  (see JNet's Tips Page for how to use AltaVista) with none of the ads or clutter.  Still not as good as Google, but getting there.

  • Pick of the week for May 14,  2000:    African Crisis News   As wars break out in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Congo and strife tears apart Zimbabwe, you can get insight and background from IRIN, a news service run by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs. It also provides an excellent archive.  Other excellent African news services include AfricaOnline and AfricaNews. JNet's webmaster, Julian Sher, just finished a two week training tour of Africa and you can find other news resources on JNet's new Africa pages.  Also, you can watch and listen listen to South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki being interviewed live by visitors to the BBC web site on the web Thursday May 18.

  • Pick of the week for May 6 ,  2000:    Pac-info      Access to over one thousand free public records in the US and Canada, everything from death and property records to official records of complaints against professionals.  Organized by state and province

  • Pick of the week for April  30,  2000:   InvisibleWeb.com       A directory of over 10,000 databases, archives, and search engines that contain information that traditional search engines have been unable to access.

  • Pick of the week for April  23,  2000:     OneWorld News   Breaking news from around the world with a critical perspective. You can search by  country  and by topic. See also their perspectives page for background features.

  • Pick of the week for April  16,  2000: Democracy Now     For the latest news and analysis of the protests in Washington DC against the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, check out the alternative news sites like Democracy Now and Radio Nation , with live news casts, interviews and background features.  For a list of other alternate news pages, see JNet's Alternative news page

  • Pick of the week for April  9,  2000:     Google Directory   The best search engine on the web just got better. Google now offers a Yahoo-type directory which allows you to search by alphabetical topic. The results come in the same excellent, relevant Google ranking the main Google search page delivers.  Plus you can now install several Google buttons directly on your browser toolbar that will allow you to search for words on web page with a single click.

  • Pick of the week for April  2,  2000:     Human Rights Watch   China, Kosovo, Chechnya, Pinochet.  Human rights dominates the news much more than in the past and a good place to find out the latest developments in Human Rights Watch, available in six languages.  The international group has a hot news page, in-depth reports and timely background briefings. 
    For other  organizations and resources, see  JNet's Human Rights News Page.

  • Pick of the week for March  26,  2000:     WakeUp News   This freeware computer alarm-clock loads your favorite online newspapers front pages and wakes you up when it's ready . Type the web addresses of the online newspapers that you want to read every morning.  You can have any online newspaper on the web, not just those allowed by a news ticker.  It can also optionally wake up - just indicate at which time you want your newspapers automatically loaded and if you want the computer alarm clock to wake you up or not. 
    For other  personalized news services, see  JNet's Choose your news Page.

  • Pick of the week for March  19,  2000:     Reuters Foundation  Want a break from the daily grind of news? Need some training? Check out the Reuters  Foundation's array of journalism training and award programs.  Reuters also provides an excellent list of journalism resources on big stories and AlertNet -- news flashes about emergencies around the world.  For more organizations around the world,  see  JNet's  Journalism Organizations Page.
  • Pick of the week for March  12,  2000:     Intelliseek's Bullseye     Intelliseek's Bullseye is a multiple search engine you have to download (for free). Once installed on your machine, it will use over 700 search engines to find what you are looking for.  It can also hunt through many news sources, a plus for journalists.  The advantage of Bullseye is that it resides on your hard drive, can be configured for your use and can save your search results.  For more tips on multiple search tools, see  JNet's Multiple search engines Page.

  • Pick of the week for March  5,  2000:     Deja's Usenet Page     Finally, Deja has revamped its Usenet search page so it is user-friendly.  Now you can easily search for story ideas and interview subjects among the tens of thousands of discussion groups by subject themes   and  by country.  For help, see Deja's Search tips. Click on Power Search and put in someone's email  in the "Author" line. For more tips on spying on people, start at JNet's Spy on Chat groups page.

  • Pick of the week for February 27,  2000:     MediaCentral     Find the news about the newsmakers. Media takeovers, scandals, new technologies, freedom of the press -- it's all here.  Though mainly American, there is plenty of news from Europe, Canada and elsewhere.  You can also focus on TV, radio, newspapers  and book publishing.  plus there is good search tool.   For other  media news   tool, see JNet's Media News page

  • Pick of the week for February 20, 2000:     NewsHub     Find the latest news from a variety of sources. Particular strengths are financial, technology and Tech Public relations, as well as world and US news.  NewsHub also provides a fast search tool that allows you to find a news story with the keyword you are looking for in the headline or the text of the article.  For other news search tools, see JNet's Search News page

     
  • Pick of the week for February 13, 2000:    The Scout Report    "Surf Smarter" is the slogan. Do you want to know about some the newest and best web sites.  The Scout Report has various experts to provide you with capsule reviews of new web sites and a good search engine.  There are also special categories for  Social sciences, Business  and Science, technology.  Keep ahead of the latest developments on the web.

  • Pick of the week for February 6, 2000:     MediaChannel   The latest addition to the many web sites that monitor and criticize the media offers  the latest news on media.  You can browse by 26 topics, including new media .  Plus background features such as interviews with Harper's Lewis Lapham  .  MediaChannel is founded and directed by media critic Danny Schecter and is affiliated with OneWorld.
    For more media criticism sites, see  JNet's Media page

  • Pick of the week for January 30, 2000:     TV Radio World  New, fast way to find any radio or TV station on web. Easy to use lists and drop-down menus makes it a snap to find broadcast outlets on the web (by state or province in the US and Canada and by country around the world. ) .  Plus background information on the communications industry and even a Broadcast Jobs listings.  For more ways to find TV and radio, see JNet's TV and Radio page

  • Pick of the week for January 23, 2000:     Freedom Forum Live webcast on Elections 2000  One of the best sites on the web for news about journalism, press freedoms and the web will present a live webcast Tuesday January 24 on Elections 2000 -- how the web will influence the US and Russian elections.  Click here for their webcast schedules.  Make Freedom Forum a regular stop for some of the best international coverage of media issues and technology media news
  • Pick of the week for January 16, 2000:     GuruNet   Browse the smart way with this browser add-on. Download it for free, let it run in the background and click on any word on any web page (or any document you are typing) and GuruNet will find information for you. For example, you are visiting a web page about Chechnya or typing a script that mentions the war there and a simple click will get you a brief description and history of the country. For more search tools that add-on to your browser, see Jnet's new page. Search Help Tools

     
  • Pick of the week for January 9, 2000:        Electric Library   Excellent newspaper and magazine archive. Mainly American but some European sources. Not free but well worth the small monthly fee. (See also their Canadian ELibrary site   )

  •  Pick of the week for January 2, 2000:  BBC Advanced search     Start the new year off with the best news site on the web.  The BBC's site recently had a major facelift and the new search engine is a wonderful tool. Search the BBC's vast archive by headline, keyword, for the last day, week or going all the way back to 1997