It's easy to get confused in a story. Let's say you somehow weaseled a free ticket to your favorite band so you could write a story about the concert for NowPublic. The concert gives you a headache, but you've scored an interview with the drummer. How do you know what question will produce the greatest results? Research.

At NowPublic we've developed our own tools to find out what's going on, but you don't have to spend a lot of money for information these days.

I recommend using a News Reader like FeedDemon (there are lots of good ones, FD is just my favorite). News Readers allow you to subscribe to multiple “feeds” – essentially, a series of headlines from online news sources.

For example, my feed at NowPublic is here. If you subscribe to it, using your browser, or a stand-alone news reader, you'd be notified every time I published something new.

You may have heard the expression, “Journalism is the first draft of history.” This is attributed to Philip Graham, the celebrated publisher of The Washington Post and one of the most respected news managers of all time. After 30 years in the business I still find that sentence inspiring.

But it was Mel Brooks who gave me the best practical advice about reporting:

At NowPublic, our members contribute to the writing of the first draft of history, in all its unrehearsed glory.