JNet's Picks of the Week - 2006

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

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

• Pick of the week December 24, 2004:  PressDisplay has improved its site since it was a Pick a few years ago. It offers a peek what the front pages of today's papers really look like -- not just their web sites. Choose from 200 newspapers from 50 countries. You can also search by country or language. You only get the front front pages for free. The rest you have to pay for. For more tools to view real papers, see JNet's Finds News pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for December 17, 2006: Economist Country Profiles One of the most newsmagazines in the world offers extensive news, country profiles, forecasts, statistics and more on many countries, plus background news articles. For similar resouces, see JNet's Countries page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for December 10 , 2006: Ask Oxford More than just a dictionary resource, this website offers you writing tips, common spelling errors, and an 'Ask the Expert' feature. For similar tools, see JNet's Reference Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for December 3, 2006: US Institute of Peace With the Iraq Study group scheduled to give its report to the Bush administration this week, this is the official site to get it - -plus other excellent background on major conflicts. The USIP is the coordinator of the Iraq Study Group's activities. and describes itself as an "independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts." A PDF copy of the report will be available for download on the web site at 11:00 am on December 6, 2006. For more tools, see JNet's International Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for November 26 , 2006: SourceWatch SourceWatch is a free encyclopedia of American politicians, issues, and groups shaping the U.S. public agenda It catalogues descriptions and details of PR firms, activist groups and government agencies as well as the criticisms that are made of these groups from different perspectives. For similar resouces, see JNet's US Politics page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for November 19, 2006: Trexy enables you to remember your searches and the web pages you visit by creating search trails. Working with over 3000 engines, Trexy allows you to retrace your steps and find not just your final result but other important items you may have seen. For more tools, see JNet's Search Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for November 12, 2006: Informed Comment University of Michigan professor Juan Cole's blog is controversial, decidedly left wing and one of the most widely read sources of news and analysis about the Middle East. Definitely worth a regular visit. For more blog search tools, see JNet's Blog Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for November 5, 2006: C-Span As the US mid-term elections head to their climax, you can keep tabs on US political news with C-Span. It also has a handy list of the best US political blogs. For similar tools, see JNet's US Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 29, 2006: Regret The Error Oops! A fun website that catalogues the errors and major corrections run by the American media. It also lists several media -- in Canada and the U.S. -- that still fail to have an online corrections website. For similar tools, see see JNet's Media Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 22, 2006: Ask.com It is being called the best competitor to Google. Sleek and simple like Google, Ask.com gives you much the same results - and with handy access to a search tools for images, news, plus encyclopedia and dictionary references. For other search engines, see JNets' Search Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 15, 2006: SingingFish Still one of the best sources to find audio and video on the web. For similar tools, see JNet's Find Audio Page and JNet's Video Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 8, 2006:GlobalSecurity.org As tensions rise over North Korea's nuclear program, this site is one of several sites that can help you track the news and especially provide background. Another good source is the Nuclear Threat Initiative For similar tools, see see JNet's Find News Page and Countries page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 1, 2006: Knowx One of least expensive but most comprehensive personal records searches available for American individuals -- judicial records, bankruptcies, property databases. For similar tools, see JNet's Find People Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for September 24, 2006: Experts.com Extensive listings of (mainly American) experts on almost every imaginable topic. For similar tools, see JNet's Experts Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for September 17, 2006: Google News Archives Google News - -already one of the best news clipping services- -now offers a free archive search. News archive search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. You can search articles or a timeline of events and articles. Some of the results from various publications are free, others are not, but all provide helpful leads. For similar tools, see JNet's News Pages and JNet's Archive Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for September 10, 2006: CJRDaily The Columbia Journalism Review offers daily news, blogs and insight into the world of journalism. For similar tools, see JNet's Media pages.

• Pick of the week for September 3, 2006: Sept 11 Archives The fifth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks next week is good time to remind people of the best archive service on the web. Archive.org has 55 billion pages of history of old, dead and disappeared web pages -- including this collection of memorable sites from Sept. 11, 2001. For similar tools, see JNet's Archve Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for August 27, 2006: Journalists' Shield Laws The www.firstamendmentcenter.org/ takes a detailed look at the legal rights of American journalists. For similar tools, see JNet's Media Law pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for August 20, 2006: Search for Video A simple but effective way to find video clips from news to entertainment. For other tools, see JNet's Search video page.
  
  

• Pick of the week for August 13, 2006: Crimes of War Project From Darfur to Iraq to Sierra Leone, this small site tries to cover some of the major stories with news, essays and background. For other tools, see JNet's Human Rights Page.

• Pick of the week for August 6, 2006: US Prison Databases This genealogy site provides one of the best updated lists of US inmate names and information. For more US crime searches, see JNet's US Crime page

• Pick of the week for July 30, 2006: Internet Access to UN Information by Research Topic This site from Yale helps you find the best information from the United Nations based on themes -- everything from women to human rights to sustainable development. For similar tools, see JNet's Countries Page

• Pick of the week for July 23, 2006: Human Rights Tools With the conflict in the Middle East raising controversies over human rights, this website offers an index to the best ways to get country analysis: political and conflict analysis, the legal instruments which that country has ratified, and human rights-relevant news. For similar tools, see JNet's Human Rights Page

• Pick of the week for July 16, 2006: Beirut Daily Star Despite the bombs, Lebanon's major English language daily keeps publishing -- and putting out an informative web page. For more Middle East papers, see JNet's Find Papers

• Pick of the week for July 9, 2006: BBC Desktop Alerts The world's largest news gathering organization with one of the best web news sites also allows you to get the news you want from the Beeb, when you want it, on your desktop. BBC also offers you a Daily E-mail service. You can choose the news you want, all in one personalized daily e-mail. For other news alerts, see JNet's News Alert Page.

• Pick of the week for July 2, 2006: Audo Archives The Internet Archive, best known for its Wayback Machine which allows you to hunt long-disappeared web sites and pages, also offers an extensive audio archive that includes Presidential speeches and secret White House tapes, old-time radio shows and modern alternative radio from Mother Jones magazine and other sources. For similar tools, see JNet's Audio Archives page.
  

• Pick of the week for June 25, 2006: Counter-terrorismblog.org You don't have to agree or disagree with the politics of this popular blog to use its resources - lots of commentary and insight, plus a good list of the latest news on everything from Iraq to Russia to Afghanistan. For other tools, see JNet's Find News Page.

• Pick of the week for June 18, 2006: Search all of Shakespeare Looking for that pithy quote. This new service from Google Books allows you to search all of the Bard's works. get a jump on your summer reading. For other Google tools, see JNet's Google Page.

• Pick of the week for June 11, 2006: Yahoo News - Audio/Video Select the Audio/Video option from the drop down menu near the search button and us this site as one of the best ways to find radio and TV news clips. For other tools, see JNet's Find News Pages

• Pick of the week for June 4, 2006: Super-Search by CyberJournalist Jonathan Dube of the Poynter Institute offers the best one-stop site for searching everything from news sites toblogs, press releases, dictionaries, encyclopedias instantly. For similar tools, see JNet's Search Page.

• Pick of the week for May 29, 2006:Newsroom Resources Helpful and well-organized guide to top web resources for journalists prepared by the Gannett newspaper chain. Heavily American but still useful, organized by topic. For similar tools, see JNet's Beats page.

  Pick of the week for May 22, 2006: Picsearch An easy and accurate way to search for pictures on the web. Allows you to choose the size, black and white, and search by country. For similar tools, see JNet's Video Search Page.
  
  

• Pick of the week for May 14, 2006: Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism offers two annual prizes of $5,000 each to any freelance print-based journalist covering foreign news, and to a local journalist in the developing world. The deadline is June 1. Created to honour fearless freelance news reporting, the awards were set up in memory of Kurt Schork, the American freelance reporter best known for his committed reporting in Bosnia and Cambodia, killed in a military ambush while on assignment for Reuters in Sierra Leone in May 2000. Administered by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting , the two winners will be announced at a ceremony held at the Frontline Club in London in November. For other awards, see JNet's Journalism Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for May 7, 2006: New York Times Navigator The web resources designed to help reporters of one of the world's leading newspapers is also available to the public. A helpful list of the top net search sites, blogs, politics and other tools. For more tools on researching countries, see JNet's Journalism Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 30, 2006: National statistics Need to know how many cell phones there are in Ireland? Or how many cars there are in Australia. Get the facts straight from the source with this link from Statistics Canada. It lists the official bureau of statistics for most of the world's countries. For more tools on researching countries, see JNet's Countries Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 23, 2006: ClustyNews Clusty, the search engine that clusters or groups general web search results into subject areas also does the same decent trick with news. Put in a general topic like "Iran" or "greenhouse gases" and Clusty News gets you the latest headlines but also groups the results into topics on the side. Plus you can also ask Clusty to sort by source and it gives you the results based on the news source. For more tools like this, see JNet's News Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 16, 2006: CiteSeer is a digital library and search engine that focuses on computer and information science. What is especially helpful is that CiteSeer lets you look for articles that reference a particular article, thus allowing you to hunt for more information related to your topic -- and you can download the full text of the articles. For similar tools, see JNet's Beats Pages and Invisible Web pages
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 9, 2006: Gigablast This search engine does what Clusty and others are beginning to do -- but not Google yet -- by clustering results. Put in any keyword and at the top you'll get other related topics grouped together to help you narrow your serach to connected subjects. For other new search tools, see JNet's Best Search Engine Pages
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 2, 2006: SciSeek One of a growing number of search tools that specialize in finding material not usually available on the main search engines,SciSeek locates scientific material on a broad range of news topics. Many of these results are part of what is known as the hidden or invisible web. For other tools, see JNet's Beats Pages and Invisible Web pages
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 26, 2006: NewspaperArchive Finding historical archives more than a few years old can be near impossible on the web. This web site offers 28.9 million newspaper pages from 584 cities going back 238 years. It is not free but less than $30 a year. There are also several free archives, such as the September11Archive, which contains more than 15,000 full-image newspaper pages on the World Trade Center and the events surrounding September 11, 2001.Historic articles, like the unveiling of the plans for the twin towers in 1964, can also be found in the archive. Other free archives include Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and the Titanic. For other tools, see JNet's Archives Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 19, 2006: Google Finance One more weapon in the Google arsenal, this search tool focuses on business news and analysis. It covers North American stocks, mutual funds and public and private companies along with charts, news and financial data.Type in the name of a major company and you get a useful snapshot. Type in a keyword like "cars" or "movies" and you get a list of relevant corporations. For other tools, see JNet's Business Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 12, 2006: Journalism.Org This web site run by the Project for Excellence in Journalism provides extensive tools for print, radio and TV journalists - everything from ethics to writing guides. Its daily briefing has some of the best inside news about the business. For more media tools, see JNet's Media Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 5, 2006: FirstGov No matter where you live and work, getting information on, from or about the American government is vital. The official search page of the US government is an excellent place to start and its advanced search page offers even more sophisticated ways to narrow down your search. For more tools, see JNet's US Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for February 26, 2006: Killer Info This metasearch engine uses several search engines at once but it adds two important advantages over other multiple search tools. It clusters or groups your results into helpful themes. And you can get a "quick peek" of each result without leaving the results page. For other tools like this, see JNet's Best Search Engines.
  
  
• Pick of the week for February 19, 2006: InterPress News Service News from a development perspective with two advantages: lots of good, easy to use categories (environment, health) from every region of the world ... plus in several languages. For more international news, see JNet's Find News Page .
  
  

• Pick of the week for February 12, 2006: Nuclear Threat Initiative As the crisis heightens over Iran's nuclear program, this is one of the most reliable and comprehensive sites to keep you informed about nuclear proliferation. Funded by a non-partisan American foundation, the NTI brings together news from international sources, plus excellent backgrounders, country-by-country briefs and an email alert service. Not to be missed. For more international news, see JNet's Find News Page and Countries page.

• Pick of the week for February 5, 2006: Cyberjournalists Bloglist The most comprehensive list of journalists who keep blogs. A great way to monitor stories, beats and the media industry. To find more blogs, see JNet's Blogs Page.

• Pick of the week for January 29, 2006: WWW Virtual Library - International Affairs Over 2600 annotated links to high-quality sources of information and analysis in a wide range of international affairs, favoring those with cost-free, authoritative information and analysis online. For similar tools, see JNet's Find Country Facts Page.

• Pick of the week for January 22, 2006: Ask Jeeves Picture Search Always a reliable and easy-to-use search engine, AskJeeves has tweaked its picture search toolbox to give you better results. The advanced search also lets you search by date and geography. For more picture searches, see JNet's Search Visuals Page

• Pick of the week for January 15, 2006: Internet Public Library -Subjects An annotated collection of high quality Internet resources, selected by the Internet Public Library that guarantees you accurate, factual information on topics from blogs to science to news. For more librarian resources, see JNet's Librarian Help pages

• Pick of the week for January 8, 2006: International FOI Laws Freedom of Information (FOI) and access to government files is the lifeblood of journalism. This website offers helpful links to resources,tips and official sites around the world, though it is not regularly updated. For more FOI resources, see JNet's FOI pages

• Pick of the week for January 1, 2006: Google Alerts: Google News Alerts have always been a JNet favourite -- the ability to track your top news stories and set up your own news clipping service is vital for journalists. The wider Alert service sends you a 'Web' alert if new web pages appear in the top twenty results for your chosen keywords. You can also combine a ''News & Web" alert, plus set up alerts to monitor chat or Usenet groups in Google Groups. For more Google Tools, see JNet's Google page.