Business & Non-Profits

• Securities and Exchange Commission. A must for all business reporters, the Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar database is a repository for all documents filed at the SEC. Reporters can access 10Ks, 13Ds, proxies and other vital corporate documentation dating back to 1993. Edgar Online, a commercial Web site, allows users to search SEC documents by an individual's name, and also can display the names of people involved with a particular company. To get the full documents, however, you must either subscribe (for a fee) to Edgar Online or go back to the SEC's Edgar. Edgar Online subscribers also can access today's filings (documents on SEC's free system are available at least 24 hours after filing).

• SEC E-Mail Alerts. 10K Wizards is one of the companies that provide a free e-mail "news alert" system, allowing reporters to receive e-mail when new SEC reports on a specific company and/or industry have been filed.

• Corporation Profiles. Hoover's Inc. provides thumbnail profiles of public and private companies, plus links to individual firms' press releases, SEC data, home pages, competitors, citations in various press outlets and other information. More detailed information is provided for a subscription fee.

• Press Releases. Business-related press releases are available through Business Wire and PR NewsWire.

• Corporation Records. The Prospector provides links to secretary of states offices around the country.

• Property Records. The University of Virginia provides links to the growing number of state, county and municipal governments that provide property records online.

• Non-Profit Records. GuideStar provides financial data from IRS 990 filings on 501(c)(3) organizations, searchable by name, town or type of organization. More than 850,000 NPOs available. The Internet Nonprofit Center also provides some basic IRS data on non-profits.

• Work Place Safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration provides inspection reports and other work place safety data by plant or location.

• Toxic Release Data. The Right-to-Know Network, a non-profit organization, makes available the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory, which enables reporters to pinpoint toxic emissions from specific plants by type and quantity. Searchable by company or geographic location. RTK Net also includes other environmental databases. The Environmental Defense Fund has a similar site.

• Washington Lobbyists. The Center for Responsive Politics provides a searchable database of registered congressional lobbyists. It is searchable by lobbyist, company or industry and provides annual expenditures. The center also provides its categories for various special-interest groups.

• Political Contributors. FECInfo and the Center for Responsive Politics are non-profit organizations that use Federal Election Commission data to allow users to track federal campaign contributions from corporations, executives and political action committees. The National Institute on Money in State Politics has available a database of state campaign finance records for selected states, searchable by donor or special-interest group.

• Census Bureau Economic Data. The Census Bureau provides a wide array of economic and business data, broken down by industries and regions, including the 2002 Economic Census, annual county business patterns, leading economic indicators and statistics on levels of income, poverty and labor. The bureau's CenStats site provides business patterns by county and zip code, monthly building permit data, federal spending, census tract data and more. The Census Bureau also provides free e-mail alerts for upcoming reports.

• Banking. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. provides data on all FDIC-insured institutions, including total assets and deposits, and aggregated data for states, counties and metropolitan areas

• Patents. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has a searchable database with all U.S. patents since 1790.

• Trademarks. The International Trademark Association's list of nearly 3,000 trademarks, for proper usage in copy.

• Newsletters & Directories. MediaFinder offers searchable directories of newsletters and magazines on a wide array of industries.

• Business News. Top breaking business news sites include Reuters, The Associated Press (via Washington Post), Bloomberg and CNNfn. American City Business Journals provides full text articles from 46 local business journals around the country.

• Society of American Business Editors and Writers. The SABEW site includes the association's bimonthly newsletter and other information for reporters and editors on the business desk.

• Company Phone Directories. Big Yellow and Yellow Pages are two Web-based business phone directories.

• New York Times Business Guide. Rich Meislin has put together a comprehensive guide to dozens of Web sites useful to the business reporter.

Maryland-Specific Business Sites

• Maryland Business. The state government's directory of companies and data on various industries.

• State Contractors. The Maryland Secretary of State has a database of all companies that do more than $100,000 in business with the state.

• Charities. The Secretary of State's searchable database of all charities active in the state.

• Corporate Charters. Department of Assessments and Taxation database provides ownership and other documents on corporations, partnerships and other business entities chartered with the state.

• Property Records. Ownership and assessment information on all parcels in the state, searchable by address via Department of Assessments and Taxation database.

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