Fact finding, fact checking, and news resources
• Links to Fact Finding and News Resources
• Check Out Hoaxes and Urban Legends
• Sarah Wernick on Viruses and Petitions

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See more excellent up-to-the-minute resources under Blogs. For links to resources on language and usage, see Style, grammar, word choice, and pronunciation. In the column to the left you will find links to fact-checking sites, whether about politics or urban legends and rumors.

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LINKS TO FACT FINDING AND NEWS RESOURCES

NEW AND EMERGING SEARCH ENGINES
WolframAlpha, a "computational knowledge engine," describes itself as "the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing. David Talbot's article, "Wolfram Alpha and Google Face Off," compares how the two Web engines do when given the same query. Talbot's reviews appear in the superb Technology Review.

Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, can be previewed here. David Talbot also has a short preview piece on it.

American Folklife Center (online archive of webcasts of concerts, lectures, symposia from 2000 on)

Charitable, nonprofit organizations, rated:
• American Institute of Philanthropy, a nonprofit charity watchdog, rates nonprofits with a letter grade (A to F).
• Charity Navigator rates 3,600 charities with one to four stars, rating them on organizational efficiency provides free financial evaluations of America's charities, rating them on organizational efficiency and organizational capacity.
• Forbes's list of America's 200 Largest Charities. Forbes lists American's largest charities (by donations) and America's most efficient charities.
• Guidestar. Donors, grantmakers, and businesses can use Guidestar's database of 1.8 million nonprofit reports.
• Funder's Guide to Rating Systems by Jessica Stannard-Friel (onPhilanthropy, 2005) explains some of the charity rankers.

NIH Research. CRISP replaced by NIH RePORTer (NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting), a searchable database on federally funded biomedical research projects and programs. News updates here.

People finders:
• MelissaDATA
• Pipl
• 123People
• Person Locators (National Agricultural Library Links)
NY Times Cybernavigator to telephone & email directories

Software for locating old place names. Linda Coffin of HistoryCrafters (www.historycrafters.com) recommends two simple pieces of software, Animap and SiteFinder, put out by Gold Bug software (www.goldbug.com), which work with a database of thousands of U.S. names for towns, counties, churches, schools, cemeteries, parks, railroads, townships, etc. Today they help you find not only current place names but also names from old records and databases that are no longer found in current maps and gazetteers.

Several websites are devoted to fact-checking and identifying hoaxes and urban legends. Before you forward that "true fact," e-mail petition, warning, amazing opportunity, or piece of gossip, run it by one of these sites. To check out accuracy in media reports, go to Regret the Error (http:/​/​www.regrettheerror.com/​)as well as the "Accuracy in Media" sites it links to.

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The following material was migrated here from the soon-to-be-late website of the late, great Sarah Wernick, by permission of her husband, Willie Lockeretz.

Emailed Virus Warnings and Petitions:
A Responsible Approach

Someone emails you a warning about a scary computer virus. Or you receive a petition for a worthy cause that urges you to sign at the bottom and pass it along to all your friends. Before you hit the “Forward” key, check it out – even if the mailing came from a trusted friend or expert.

• Virus warnings


• Petitions

Virus warnings

People who pass along emailed virus warnings mean well - but nearly all these warnings are hoaxes. At a minimum, they waste time and cause needless worry. But some of these hoaxes are as dangerous as viruses, because they direct people to delete files that are actually necessary parts of their computer's operating system.
Before you forward a warning to others, take a minute to verify it at one of the many reliable anti-virus sites online. If the warning is legitimate, include a documenting URL when you forward it. That way, people can rely upon your information. And if you learn that it's a hoax, discourage others from spreading it further: Copy the debunking URL and send it with a brief summary to the person who warned you and to everyone else who received the warning.

For reliable information about viruses warnings, see any of the following:

• The Urban Legends Reference Pages – http:/​/​www.snopes.com – offer an extensive searchable archive with excellent information.


• The urban legends page of About.com – http:/​/​urbanlegends.about.com– is
  an excellent resource for hoaxes and urban legends, with articles and extensive searchable archives.


• The Department of Energy's Cyber Incident Response Capability (DOE CIRC) – http:/​/​www.doecirc.energy.gov/​– provides good articles and searching capability.


• Another venerable Internet resource is Vmyths.com – http:/​/​www.vmyths.com– with reliable information on specific virus myths and urban legends, as well as useful general information.

Are You Infected? The following two sites allow you to screen your computer viruses at no charge. If you're infected, they also provide free instructions or free programs for eliminating many viruses. http:/​/​securityresponse.symantec.com (Scroll down and look for "Online Virus and Security Check") http:/​/​www.antivirus.com (Look for "Trend Micro HouseCall" and click on "Scan now.")

Petitions

Has this urgent appeal to save NPR turned up in your inbox?

On NPR's Morning Edition last week, Nina Totenberg said that if the Supreme Court supports Congress, it is in effect the end of the National Public Radio (NPR), NEA & the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). PBS, NPR and the arts are facing major cutbacks in funding....

The letter asks you to sign a petition and forward it to as many people as possible. Don't bother: This petition has been circulating since 1995, and it's hopelessly out of date, as NPR explains on their website.
This is just one example of a petition that’s either pointless or a hoax. Think about it: Everyone submits the same lists, so there are hundreds or even thousands of duplications. How can such petitions be credible? And signatures are lost if someone breaks the chain.

Can it hurt to pass along a petition, even if you’re not sure it’s for real? Yes – because it wastes people’s limited time and energy for activism. Better to focus our efforts where they can do some good.

Here are other options:

• Send people to an online organization that is collecting signatures – or that facilitates more direct action, such as writing to members of Congress.


• If you want to start your own petition or find one to sign – visit Petition Online (http:/​/​www.petitiononline.com). As they explain: “Unlike the various flaky email petitions that periodically wander around the Internet, with PetitionOnline there is exactly one authoritative master copy of your petition. Each signature and email address (always required, but optionally confidential) is logged for possible explicit or statistical validation. Duplicate signatures are automatically rejected, and each person who signs is automatically sent a confirming email message.”

by Sarah Wernick
Revised December 1, 2004.
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