109 9.19 Informal Contributors
What motivates an informal source to talk with you?
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Are they outraged at something and want to get their viewpoint heard?
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Are they concerned and want to help tell the story?
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Have they been paid a stipend to participate in your focus group?
Consider, too, why you want to talk with them:
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Are you trying to fill in the details about an event from eyewitnesses, in which case you need to talk with several sources?
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Are you interested in opinions to give a broader perspective to the topic you are covering?
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Are you looking for a better way to reach your audience for an ad campaign?
The art of interviewing is complex and your approach to different kinds of sources will be different. With informal sources, the better you can determine motivation and mood, the better you’ll be able to figure out what to do with the information and reactions you get.
Among the most valuable people-finder resources on the Internet are the telephone directory services. A service such as AnyWho allows you to look up by name, by phone number, or by address. For example, if an accident happens around a particular address, you could use this reverse look up by address to find the names and phone numbers of the people who live there who might serve as eye-witnesses.
Pipl searches the “deep web” for information on specific people. The Pipl search engine locates information that cannot be be found using regular search engines. You can search by name, email, username or phone number and the Pipl search engine will generate results from public records, social media posts, online shopping sites where someone posts reviews, and more.
Spokeo is another search engine that scours the digital world for information about individuals. It can be searched by name, email, phone, username or address. Journalists can use it to locate public records and social networking information about individuals. Strategic communicators can use it to find background information about clients or donors.
Facebook is the familiar social networking site with now more than 1 billion users across the globe. Depending on the privacy setting an individual has chosen to apply, you may be able to locate the person you want to find via Facebook. Media organizations can also create Facebook sites to solicit comments, feedback and information from customers or audience members. Using Graph Search on Facebook, you can combine more than 100+ personal details to conduct a search. For instance, you can search for “people who work at ABC company in New York,” or “photos taken at the World Cup by people from the United States,” or “sports teams liked by CEO’s,” or “Democrat women who like guns,” or any other myriad of combinations. The possibilities are endless, as are the pitfalls for unethical or unscrupulous use.
Twitter is the micro-blogging site that has been described as the SMS of the internet. Individuals and organizations have established Twitter accounts and their Tweets can be