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SPJ offers diverse-sourcing resource for reporters

By freedomforum.org staff

06.26.02

The Society of Professional Journalists has launched a resource for journalists seeking to broaden their story sources beyond the “usual suspects.”

The Rainbow Sourcebook is “designed to make it easy to report beyond the narrow demographic band most of us usually consult,” writes Sally Lehrman, a free-lance writer and chair of SPJ’s Diversity Committee, in an article about the sourcebook.

The sourcebook database can be searched by topic — 65 subjects ranging from transportation and prisons to finance and immigration — and by state.

“Other journalists have collected these sources, so you know they’re not being plugged by a marketing department or public relations firm,” Lehrman says.