Will Sommer

The 1st document to find when covering a college

Whether you're a college journalist or covering higher education for another outlet, the first thing you should find  is the university's record retention policy. The document, sometimes called the record management policy, handles what document is held by what department and for how long. Getting it online, through a FOIA request, or from a university employee will simplify your document  searches, especially if you're filing FOIA requests. For example, take a look at the University of [+]

Guidestar and the Joy of 990 Forms

No need for this with public documents My tour of journalism books continues with William C. Gaines's Investigative Journalism. Gaines is a more exciting writer than Ullman, the last author I read, and he wisely steers away from technology issues that will soon become outdated. My favorite part of Investigative Journalism, though, is that it taught me about the 990 tax forms non-profits have to file. While journalists at public schools luxuriate in their open records requests, [+]