Here's a valuable website ... www.journalism.org/

A website I think we'll see a lot of http://www.journalism.org/ available on line at <http://www.journalism.org/> in the next couple of weeks -- I
"Googled" into it -- oops! how would you change that?

Aha ... performed a Google keyword search ... right?

Why did I correct myself?

Back to the website. Journalism.org is the website of The Project for Excellence in Journalism, a think tank that "specializes in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It is non partisan, non ideological and non political." Originally affiliated with the journalism school at Columbia University, located in New York City and one of the best, PEJ is now part of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. I like it because it deals with hard fact gathered by a research method known as content analysis -- basically a way of counting references to something and analyzing the data statistically to see how important it is. Says the PEJ website:

Our goal is to help both the journalists who produce the news and the citizens who consume it develop a better understanding of what the press is delivering. The Project has put special emphasis on content analysis in the belief that quantifying what is occurring in the press, rather than merely offering criticism and analysis, is a better approach to understanding.

The website has other resources as well:

Directed by journalist Tom Rosenstiel, PEJ's broadened research agenda will include a new series of continuing content studies of the news agenda, plus tracking of key industry trends, and timely commentary and analysis of that trend data. At the same time, PEJ will also continue its existing research, including publishing the State of the News Media, an annual report on American journalism, conducting "opportunistic" content studies on press performance of key events, offering occasional analysis of press behavior and publishing the Daily Briefing, a digest of media news. PEJ's new website is designed to be an archive of that research and a place for people to conduct their own inquiries through the searchable and customizable functions built into the site.

We'll be writing some heads on material available at Journalism.org.