By BARRY VIGODA
The Dallas Morning News

Excuses and refusals are simply welcome challenges for David Milliron.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's director of computer-assisted reporting and analysis never takes no for an answer.

When public officials on county, state and national levels hear Milliron's name, they know giving up their public documents in a timely manner is the smartest way to deal with this bulldog.

Milliron covered countless ways to uncover public documents through the Internet, telephone and face-to-face reporting. He is quick to warn that while the majority of information can be found online, access to some public records still requires leaving the office.

Knowing how to determine if a document is public, how to request those documents and understanding retention schedules (length of time records must be kept) immediately improve a reporter's chances of gaining access in a timely fashion. And while most investigative reporters know the basics of searching for public documents, Milliron's list of resources gives reporters access to the knowledge necessary to attain any public document and the answers to legal questions or concerns they might have.

Milliron's list of sites:

Pacific Information Resources: searchsystems.net
Links to more than 36,000 public data bases

Nicar Net tour: wire.org/training/nettour
Training on finding sources, public's right to records, paper trails, investigating government and businesses

Power reporting: powerreporting.com
Thousands of free research tools for journalists

Zabasearch: zabasearch.com
Free people search, public database directory

Search Network: addresses.com
Area code, reverse phone, e-mail and white pages searches

Google Groups: groups.google.com
Search for names or domains of millions who participate in forums.

People Finder Services: pretrieve.com or zoominfo.com
Pretrieve allows searches of numerous property, tax and court records. Zoominfo, provides a person's work and educational history.

Nonprofit Organizations: tfcny.fdncenter.org or guidestar.org
Nonprofits must make their 990s available on request. Some nonprofits have their tax status challenged and land in federal tax court, which produces documents and information a 990 won't yield.

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.: ire.org
Resource center maintains a 20,000-plus story database and over 2,000 tip sheets from past conferences.

DNS stuff: dnsstuff.com
Domain name system (Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses). Used to look up who operates a Web site, verify e-mail addresses and trace IP addresses.

Public Records Letter Generator: splc.org/foiletter.asp
Full-automated, fill-in-the-blank state public records letter generator

Federal FOI Act Letter Generator: www.rcfp.org/foi_letter/generate.php
FOI public records letter generator for federal documents

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: rcfp.org
Access to electronic records, juvenile courts, taping issues, how to use FOI Act

Campus Crime: U.S. Department of Education: ope.ed.gov/security
College and university crime data

Campus Crime: FBI Uniform Crime Statistics: fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
Includes data for about 400 schools

Search tips: pandia.com
Collection of best search engine-oriented sites and blogs on the Web

American Universities: www.clas.ufl.edu/au
As home pages are found for American universities granting bachelor or advanced degrees, they are added here

GuideStar: www.guidestar.org
Leading source of information on U.S. nonprofits

Milliron says he's always happy to help reporters seeking answers on database reporting. He can be reached at David@Milliron.com

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