Most active reporting efforts start with a question that leads to research. By getting to know some of the government spending, safety and census information about the region you serve as a journalist, you can raise questions that lead you to significant issues.
For example — Suppose you wonder whether your city or county is spending too much or too little on fire and rescue services. You can check spending in your county against per capita spending in other counties and the state average by downloading the most recent comparative data from the Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts. Of course, there may be a good reason why spending is higher in one place than the next, so this is just a good starting point as you ask questions of local government officials.
- Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts — Especially valuable are the comparative local government reports in Excel format which allow per-capita comparisons in all kinds of spending categories.
- Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) — Check reports on local agencies. JLARC audits state government units and reports to the state legislature. (Unlike the APA, which reports to the governor). This is similar to federal-level legislative agencies like the Congressional Budget Office reports or Government Accountability Office, both of which report to Congress.
- New River Valley Planning Commission has population and income reports for the area.
- Campus crime reports. One list of links is here.
- Virginia Town Hall — Public comments on proposed regulations.
- Virginia Courts and the general Case information site. This database is astonishingly difficult and cumbersome to use, and not at all timely or generally useful, but at least you can at least get a small window into the court system. It does not substitute for on-site reporting, but it can be helpful, for instance, in checking on the outcome of criminal cases and civil lawsuits against local government or universities.
- Open Secrets — Top campaign contributions for Congress.
- EPA enforcement and compliance history online
- National environmental public health tracking system — Centers for Disease Control.
- US Census / also: for Radford VA
- Virginia Public Access Project — Track lobbyist expenses and state office campaign contributions.