The news cycle is no longer a cycle, in the sense there’s no longer any time to recover before the next Donald Trump-related news bombshell hits. To help journalists manage the endless barrage of news stories, CJR has compiled a list of five tools to solve common problems you may encounter covering Trump. Want to find clips of Trump discussing a specific topic without combing through archives? Want to keep up with all White House releases in real time? Want to find a random segment from a news program discussing the president? We’ve got you covered.
PROBLEM: You heard Trump news or a Trump quote on TV but forgot where.
SOLUTION: The Internet Archive allows you to search captions from shows on networks like C-SPAN, Fox, MSNBC, and more. If you can remember some key words from the conversation, you might be able to find the segment you’re looking for. The database has clips from more than 1.3 million shows since 2009, so it covers a lot of ground. Additionally, there is a separate collection that includes links to articles fact-checking some of the information in the clips.
Courtesy of The Internet Archive
Related: 10 tools to tackle common problems journalists face
PROBLEM: You want to keep up with releases the White House puts out on all social platforms without making it your full-time job.
SOLUTION: For 99 cents, you can download an app that alerts you in real-time when the Trump administration releases basically anything. The Trump White House Consolidated News Release Feed sends notifications (which you can turn on and off) for emails, live streams, Instagram posts, YouTube videos and press releases on the White House website. It also tracks a number of Twitter handles (@realDonaldTrump, @mike_pence, @POTUS, @PressSec, @SeanSpicer, WhiteHouse). One of its best features is capturing deleted tweets from these accounts.
Courtesy of Trump White House Consolidated News Release Feed.
PROBLEM: You need to quickly find every time Trump has tweeted about a certain subject.
SOLUTION: Although there are other tools for mining Trump tweets, the Trump Twitter Archive can help you find what you want fast. You can quickly search and find all the times Trump tweeted about any term you select. The site has also organized Trump’s tweets by topics such as global warming, media disdain, and President Barack Obama.
Courtesy of the Trump Twitter Archive
PROBLEM: You want to find raw video of Trump discussing certain subjects, but you don’t have time to sift through hours of speeches.
SOLUTION: Factbase has indexed and transcribed nearly every speech Trump has made. Thanks to their efforts, you can now search through hours of video and find the exact moments Trump made certain comments. For instance, if you search Manafort you find nearly every time Trump has been recorded discussing his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Image via Factbase
PROBLEM: You want to understand Trump’s media diet by seeing the same tweets he’s likely to see.
SOLUTION: CNNPolitics created a Twitter list that allows you to view what Trump sees when he opens his Twitter feed. The president currently follows only 43 Twitter accounts, which includes family members, some supporters, and major right-wing political figures. We have seen that his media diet has an effect on his decisions, so it might benefit journalists to start getting familiar with the stories he’s reading.
Courtesy of CNN
Related: What type of journalist are you?
Justin Ray is an audience editor at the Los Angeles Times. Follow him on Twitter @jray05.
