Internet Addresses or URLS

The amount of information on the Internet is hard to imagine. Some experts say that Internet volume doubles every 90 days. At the end of 2000, about 800 million documents existed online. Everyone has a reason to put information on the Internet: Commercial companies want to motivate consumers to buy products; nonprofit organizations want to influence people about an issue; government agencies show citizens that they are doing their job; and students use their Web sites to present electronic resumes or to spout opinions about a campus event. Because so many people use the Web for so many reasons, journalists must question the reliability of Web delivered information. Reporters need to find out who put the information on the Web and why, and then verify any information they use.

Every screen of information on the Internet has an address, called its URL or universal resource locator. Once journalists become familiar with the parts of an Internet address, they can find many Web sites simply by using logic. For example, to find the 1998 winners of the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ contests, one types in: http://www.ire.org/contest/past/1998 .html.

The http is the protocol or computer scheme used to access information, and www.ire. org/contest/past/1998.html identifies the electronic path to the specific screen (l998.html) holding desired information.

Here is what the parts of the address mean: The http: means hypertext transfer protocol. This protocol allows computers to move information (text, graphics, audio and video) around the Web. It allows a person to click on words to find another document residing in another computer.

The www is part of the host computer’s name. Not every address on the World Wide Web has www as its prefix.

The Investigative Reporters and Editors organization uses its abbreviated name, ire, as the designation of its Web site. The IRE is a nonprofit organization, which is indicated by .org in the address.

The two phrases /contest and /past are file path names, routing one to the information about the 1998 winners.

And the phrase /1998.html identify the screen holding the names of the journalists who won IRE contests in 1998. The software used to develop this screen supports hypertext markup language, which contains text and graphics and links to words found in other computers on the Internet.

Web sites are re-organized often. If journalists can’t go directly to the file they need, they omit the filename and file path, and type in the Web site’s home page (www.ire.org). They’ll be able to find the desired information by using the home page’s links.

Try to find the winners of the 1998 contests, sponsored by the IRE, by starting at the Investigative Reporters and Editors home page (www.ire.org). Watch the URL locator (address) change with each click on a button.

Journalists’ URLs: Journalists keep at their desks for easy access lists of important telephone numbers and addresses. They might keep source lists on paper taped to a wall or consult cards in a Rolodex file. Now, journalists also keep an electronic address book of sources’ telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, and they “bookmark” a source’s or reference’s Web page. (“Bookmarks” can be found on the menu bar of Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator, for example.) Other journalists maintain a list of online references on their own Web page. By using electronic book- marks or listing URLs on a Web page, journalists can be “linked” to online information quickly. Here are a few sites that help reporters obtain information, verify news and find sources for their general and beat assignments:

Finding People