This page mirrors the Lookup Database page on NCC Newslinks.
Remember, before using any data in a story, question the data:
- Who compiled it?
- Why was it compiled?
- Where did the data come from?
- For numbers, find the index, so you know what each unit of data means
- and remember mistakes are common in databases so telephone the source to confirm
Topics
Agriculture
Onondaga Grown campaign — find local farms, farmers markets and restaurants serving locally-produced foods
Business
- Edgar database –from the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. Get basic information and finances for publicly-held companies:
- 10-K — the annual report
- 10- Q – covers business operations, property, finances, pending suits, officers, general background
- 8-K — required for significant changes such as a sale, new management, a lawsuit, court judgment or fines
- DEF 14A of Form 14(a) breaks down executive compensation
- S-4 — shows when corporate management buys of sells shares in the company, for example if the CEO or CFO is unloading or buying up the stock
- S-1 outlines the company’s initial public offering (IPO) when the company is first going public
- NERDS database from Edunomics Lab at Georgetown — provides the federal data on how much is spent per school (rather than by district). Must register to download the spreadsheet . This will take some time and data crunching to analyze and see the webinar on this page for an overview.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics — databases, tables and calculators on employment pay, inflation and much more
- Trade/ Imports Exports — info and statistics
- Statistica via SU Libraries — all types of statistics here
- Union disclosure info from US Dept of Labor — officers, payees, financials. See this help guide
Courts
- Civil case search for Auburn, Cortland, Ithaca, Oneida, Rome Syracuse, Utica and other City Courts in NYS
- Civil case search for supreme court civil cases in NYS counties.
- Criminal case search (some counties, not Onondaga)
- Indictments — Onondaga County from Post Standard.
- Inmate Lookup, Onondaga County Justice Center
- Inmate Lookup, New York State
- Uniform Crime Reports — reported violent crimes (agencies over 10,000) or by state
Covid-19 Resources
LOCAL
- Onondaga County
- Executive Ryan McMahon briefings archived on Facebook and You Tube
- Onondaga County Health Dept. Media Releases
- Cayuga County Coronavirus Webpage
- Cortland County Health Department Coronavirus Webpage
- Madison County Health Coronavirus Page
- Oswego County Health Dept Coronavirus Page
NEW YORK STATE
- Governor Cuomo Archive of past briefings
- Dept of Health Novel Coronavirus Website with latest news
- Hot spots – find by location
- Positive Tests by Region
- Vaccination information
FEDERAL
- Centers for Disease Control Data Tracker (compare/contrast states, see trends)
- CDC General information about COVID
OTHER
- Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
Crime
LOCAL
- Blotters — CNY/local blotters — searchable by name, date, charge and agency. Updated weekly by Post Standard/syracuse.com
- Guns and Gun Violence
- note: without any federal guidelines or statistics some media and organizations keep a variety of statistics on gun violence. See them below. Be sure to understand what each counts and doesn’t. For background information, see this Rand paper. or CoveringGuns.com, a non-partisan site by journalist Al Tompkins, Poynter, or 7 things journalists should know about guns. from Journalist’s Resource from Harvard,
- US Mass Shootings — from Mother Jones magazine. Counts indiscriminate shootings in public places, with four or more victims; compiled from media reports. Excludes armed robbery, gang violence or domestic violence.
- Gun Violence Archive — from independent research group. All gun incidents, but has a sub-category of mass shootings of four or more victims. Compiled from law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources.
- School Shooting List — archive from CNN, as of May, 2018. not updated
- Mapping Police Violence — list of persons killed by police, whether justifiable or not, compiled from multiple sources by data scientists.
- Onondaga County Sheriff inmate lookup — find if someone is being held at the Justice Center downtown
- Onondaga County UCR/index crimes, 2015-2019 — by agency. see info above of what comprises the UCR reports.
- Syracuse crime from CompStat — These are statistics from the federal so-called “index crimes” reported in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Part 1 offenses: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson. note: as of 2021, the city and county are working to move to the new federal NIBRS system which will provide statistics on more crimes.
- Syracuse unsolved homicides
STATE
- New York State Annual Crime Report — a narrative report with statistics including reported crime trends, violent crime rates and homicides. note: this information is always 12-18 months old because of the time it takes to compile it
- New York State Index and violent Crime Rates by county note info above about index crimes
- New York State Sex Offender registry map
- New York State Sex Offenders Registry
FEDERAL
- Crime Data Explorer — from FBI. Includes various crime stats and visualizations
- Police Shootings nationally :
- Fatal Encounters, compiled by journalist and former Univ. Nevadea-Reno professor D. Brain Burghart
- Fatal Force database of fatal shootings by on-duty police officers in U.S., from Washington Post
- Mapping Police Violence, by a data scientist and two activists
- Uniform Crime Reports – from FBI. A compilation of violent crimes: quarterly reports and annual reports
Data
- Syracuse.com Data & Statistics — includes many lookup databases for regional statistics including housing prices, federal relief money, job losses, election rolls, graduation rates and much more. From Post Standard/syracuse.com
Demographics
- CensusReporter – an independent site for journalists to make it easier to search data. From Knight Foundation
- Poverty data for Syracuse from Community Foundation. Updated Jan. ’21 and each summer
- Quick Facts — use to search for basic common data by state, county or city
- U.S. Census — browse by topic. Includes 2020 estimates of population by age, sex, race/origin. See also Facts Quick. See also this Census Handbook for Media
- Vital Statistics, NY State: birth, death, infant mortality, causes of death and morenote: latest stats are from 2017 and these tables do not include New York City
- WISQARS, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System — CDC’s stats on fatal and nonfatal injuries, violent death and cost of injury data. death and injury rates
Disinformation/Misinformation
- Is This Legit — Short videos for teens, by teens, who check out whether news or opinion is true. From Media Wise/Poynter Institute
- Legal Fact Check — From the American Bar Association.
- PolitiFact — Poynter Institute checks out politician’s statements and gives a rating of true, false or pants-on-fire
- Snopes — check out rumors here
Education
- College Scorecard — includes data, by institution, for enrollment, student aid, typical student loan payments, graduation rathes and more.
- School district per pupil spending in NY State and in Central New York
- note: the funding for Syracuse City Schools is different and thus not in this database.
- High school graduation rates — includes every public high school in New York. From the Post Standard/syracuse.com
Environment
- EPA Superfund site — worst pollution sites
- TRI, Toxic Release Inventory — who is releasing what toxins into the air, or water or ground.
Fire
Onondaga County Fire Response Reports — gives the time it took the fire department to get to the scene by month and year to date
Government
see also Politics
- LOCAL
- Syracuse Open Data — includes data ranging from roads to lead violations to water main breaks to housing
- City of Syracuse services response rates –potholes, police calls, trash and more
- STATE
- Contracts
- NYOpenGovernment from Attorney General
- Open Book New York from comptroller
- OpenFOILNew York — form on which to submit a freedom of information request
- Contracts
- FEDERAL
- Contracts of federal government
- Congress.gov — track legislation, see House/Senate calendars.
- Data.gov — the so-called “mother of government data sites”
- Document Cloud – Federal government public records search
- Congress.gov — track legislation, see House/Senate calendars.
- Paycheck Protection Program — find out, by locale, which local companies got theses business loans, part of the CARES Act of 2020
- Vendors — who is doing business with the government
Health
- Centers for Disease Control — State and Territorial Data on births birth rates, deaths and death rates.
- HealtheCNY — A non-for profit in CNY that provides reputable health information
- Hospital Inspections — tracks problems with hospitals
- Hospital Finances — finances of non-profit hospitals and their finances.
- Injury WISQARS, (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting Systems) — fatal and nonfatal injuries, deaths, etc. From the CDC
- New York State Vital Statistics — such as births, fetal deaths, pregnancies and more
- Nursing Home databases in New York State.
- Medicare Data comparing U.S. hospitals, nursing homes, physicians, rehab centers and more (requires time to learn)
- WISQARS — see under Health
- City Health Dashboard for Syracuse — from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and New York University
- Death
- Coronavirus and other causes of death by county
- Federal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report — gives details on causes of death
Immigration/Detention
TRAC Quick Facts – this research organization, affiliated with Newhouse, gives a user-friendly way to see data on immigrant detention and immigration courts. And here is more information on other TRAC data on immigration
Non-profits and Charities
- Guidestar — search IRS 990 forms on non-profits to get basic information and finances for the non-profit or charity. requires registration
- IRS Charity search — fin out if a group is really a registered charity
- NYS charities database — check out charities in New York State
People Finders
- Syracuse Newspapers archives at SU Library — search names in the archives of the local paper. See handout under Manuals at NCC News Links
- Tweetbeaver – search a Twitter user’s followers, find common followers of two accounts, check if two accounts follow each other, or more.
- Phone Books
- Anywho.com
- FastPeopleSearch
- PeopleFinders (costs $2.95 for 3 day trial)
- WhitePage.com
- Sources
- DiverseSource.org – underrepresented voices in science, health and environment.
- Expertise Finder
- ONA Info INequlatiy Databaes — from the Online News Association
Polls
- Journalist’s Cheat Sheet to Understanding Polls from Am. Asso. Public Opinion Research
- Gallup Key Trends — search by topic
- Pollingreport.com — shows trends in American public opinion
- Quinnipiac Polls — many political polls
- Real Clear Politics — includes poll averages on presidential nominees and other topics
- Roper Polls — 85 years of public opinion polls from the major polling companies. Located at Cornell Univ.
Politics
- Campaign Finance
- Federal Elections Commission — federal government website with contribution and expenditures for campaigns
- Open Secrets — non-governmental, but reputable site for contributions to federal campaigns
- Democratic Policy Proposals: in-depth research from Journalist’s Resource
- VoteSmart.org — speeches and position papers for federal candidates
- VoteView – shows congressional roll call through history on an ideological map. Local Rep. John Katko’s votes are here.
Research
- Journalist’s Resource from Harvard University — research studies/reports by topic
- Journalist’s Toolbox from SPJ — great investigative and lookup tools specifically for journalists
- NORC at University of Chicago — topical index
Safety
- OSHA database of workplace deaths, injuries and more
Sports
- High School Sport Stats — includes info on NY Section II and III. Organized by season.
- Journalist Toolbox/Sports — sports data, sports medicine, business and law, sports sociology & race, Olympics, high school sports and much more. From Society for Professional Journalists
Taxes
Property Taxes
Tax Comparison internationally by country
Transportation
Weather
- NOAA — Storm events
This page is maintained by Professor Barbara Fought. Last updated 4/19/21
