News Library News Online
Vol. 21, No.4/Summer 1999

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SLA Conference

Regular Features

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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Public Records
Link directly to: Major Players  Public Record Web Sites

By Leigh Poitinger

The lights dimmed, music swelled, words of wisdom dropped from the sky…

Well, OK, there wasn't music, but there were some dimmed lights and many words of wisdom during the News Division's continuing education course at the annual SLA conference in Minneapolis.

The course, entitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Public Records," was a fact-packed session moderated by Michael Sankey of BRB Publications. Speakers included Bill Krueger, an investigative reporter at the Raleigh News & Observer; John Ullmann of the World Press Institute; John Martin, a researcher at the St. Petersburg Times; and Dorothy Shea, a researcher at the Palm Beach Post.

Public Records from a Reporter's Perspective

The morning session focused on public records from a reporter's perspective. Bill Krueger, who started off the session, is on of those unusual reporters who, by his own admission, loves to really dig around in primary records. In addition to many fascinating examples of stories that he has worked on involving public records, Bill's words of wisdom included these tips:

  • Find the reporters at your paper that know public records. Tag along with them. You can learn a lot from a field trip to the county courthouse to dig through primary records.
  • Be persistent. Learn who to ask for records, how to ask, and when to get tough. Being polite is good, but being persistent is even better.
  • Challenge a bureaucrat who says a record is private or who wants to charge a high fee. If a fee seems too high, ask for an itemized breakdown of the cost.
  • If you are investigating a non-profit organization, request their 990-tax form. Non-profits are required to file the informational 990 form, and you can find officers, assets, and profits, salary information and more.

John Ullmann, a journalist with the World Press Institute and former editor of "The Reporter's Handbook," not only had words of wisdom but also delivered them with the style of a preacher.

John presented a whirlwind tour through most of the mainstays of public records: real estate records, civil court suits, tax courts, bankruptcy courts, search warrants, juvenile courts, probate courts, UCC filings, vehicle registrations, fictitious business names, secretary of state filings, FOIA, annual reports, labor agencies, and permits.

After regaling the crowd with tales of how public records can get the bad guys, John also offered six rules about public records and the web:

  • Know where the data came from
  • Use official pages
  • Know when the data was updated
  • See who else has the same data and corroborate what you find
  • Print out everything (web sites can vanish)
  • Tell readers exactly where you got information from a web site and when you got it

 Public Records from a Researcher's Perspective

The afternoon session kicked off with a review and comparison of the major online public records services by John Martin of the St. Petersburg Times. He covered the major features and pricing of CDB Infotek, DBT (Autotrak), Information America, KnowX, IRSC, and Lexis-Nexis. John also stressed the importance of investigating regional services in your area, such as Merlin in California. His other tips included:

Benchmark Online Services:

  • "Know thyself online." In other words, run searches on yourself with every service you use.
  • Don't wait for a crisis to discover a service's shortcomings.
  • Take advantage of all the free searches you can get your hands on. Always ask for a free trial period.
  • If you can't interpret what you are seeing, call tech support and be assertive.

Guide Reporters through the Records Maze:

  • Clear up misconceptions about what is really available online.
  • Explain primary versus secondary sources.
  • Help them know themselves online. They'll be surprised at what information is available about them.
  • Seize the teachable moments (don't assume they know what they are doing).
  • Cultivate relationships with records-savvy reporters and editors.

Coping Strategies for Dealing with Public Records:

  • Have more than one tool in your toolbox.
  • Perform a public records inventory. Compare what you can get from each service.
  • Let services know when you are disappointed, frustrated or unhappy with the service.
  • Investigate regional services.

Dorothy Shea of the Palm Beach Post finished the session by discussing where to find public records and how to educate yourself and reporters. The public records market has become more competitive in the past few years, and it changes frequently. Keeping up is a full-time job! Dorothy also offered some search tips for public records.

Where to find Public Records:

  • There are many places you can look for help. State and county law librarians and government documents librarians at your local public library or university are often a good place to start. Online and web resources can also offer help. Place to look include commercial vendors web sites, electronic mailing lists, the BRB Publications web site, Internet Prospector (for corporate, non-profit and charity web sites), Property Assessments Online (for tax assessor records), Gary Price's List of Lists (for state and county records), listservs (like IRE and Newslib), Webgator (a generic public records web site), and dial-up government services like Pacer. Other resources to consider are your local legal newspaper, your local business newspaper (such as the American City Business Journals), and other daily newspapers in your area.

How to educate yourself and reporters:

  • There are several publications and web sites that can shed light on the public records maze, such as your state's open records handbook, "Tapping Officials Secrets" (web site), "Black's Law Dictionary," judicial manuals (county, state and federal levels), and "State Public Records" (a BRB Publications book).
  • In addition to reading about public records, learn how the various systems work. Find out their quirks, limitations and extra bits of information. For example, some records in Pacer are case sensitive, and you can often find unlisted phone number is voter registration databases.
  • For reporters and editors, it's helpful to offer formal classes on how to use public records. Also do one-on-one coaching for investigative pieces, and spoon-feed reporters one at a time (and don't assume they know what they are doing).

Search tips:

  • Know your geography regarding the person you are investigating. Where do they live, work, vacation, or retire? Someone who works in Memphis may live in Tennessee, Arkansas or Mississippi. Or, if someone got married in Las Vegas, you could search the records from Clark County, Nevada.
  • Names have lots of variations. Take into account nicknames, anglicized names, people who go by a middle name, Asian names (inverted), hyphenated or double surnames, and maiden names.
  • Know what's difficult to find information. You won't find much information on children or militia members.
  • Don't assume anything.

Leigh Poitinger is the news research webmaster at the San Jose Mercury News. Her email is lpoitinger@sjmercury.com

 THE MAJOR ONLINE PUBLIC RECORDS PLAYERS

CDB Infotek
888-333-3365
www.cdb.com/public/

DBT (Autotrak)
800-279-7710
www.dbt.com

Information America
800-235-4008
www.infoam.com

IRSC
800-640-4772
www.irsc.com

KnowX
800-235-4008
www.knowx.com

Lexis-Nexis
800-227-9597
www.lexis-nexis.com/business/pubrec/index.html

OTHER PUBLIC RECORDS WEB SITES

BRB Publications
www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.htm

Carroll's Municipal and County Links
www.carrollpub.com/Municounty/muniopener.html

Equifax
www.equifax.com

Free Public Record Sites
www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.htm

Gary Price's List of Lists - U.S. State and City Resources
www.gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/state.htm

Individual Reference Services Group
www.irsg.org

Internet Prospector (U.S. Corporation Records Online)
w3.uwyo.edu/~prospect/secstate.html

Pacer (Public Access to Court Electronic Records)
www.uscourts.gov/PubAccess.html

Property Assessments Online
www.people.Virginia.EDU/~dev-pros/Realestate.html

Prospect Research
www.people.virginia.edu/~dev-pros/Webresources.html

PublicRecordSources.com
www.publicrecordsources.com

Public Records USA
www.lainet.com/factfind/states.htm

Tapping Officials Secrets (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press)
www.rcfp.org/tapping/index.cgi

TML
www.tml.com

Trans Union
www.transunion.com

Webgator
www.inil.com/users/dguss/wgator.htm
(1/28/2002 - Webgator is now Virtual Gumshoe. The new URL is http://www.virtualgumshoe.com/)


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