EXTRA! READERS TALK BACK!

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The vast labyrinths of computer data bases do indeed offer a lot of potential source material to weed through. Reporters now regularly troll the Internet for stories in the same way they used to prowl the corridors of City Hall. The tradecraft is a little different, but journalists are learning fast. Last October more than 300 of them turned out for a four-day seminar on ``computer-assisted reporting'' in Santa Clara, California, where they were told how to use a computer to research everything from medical data bases to campaign contributions. A similar seminar on the East Coast was an even bigger draw.

Some newspapers, including the Raleigh (North Carolina) News & Observer, give their reporters free Internet accounts and encourage them to use them. ``It's a great tool,'' says News & Observer reporter Kay McFadden, who has broken several stories about IBM thanks to E-mail tipsters inside the normally tight-lipped corporation. ``E-mail,'' she says, ``allows you to virtually walk the corridors of IBM.'' In Atlanta, Journal-Constitution reporter Carrie Teegardin routinely logs onto a data base at the University of Michigan to collect census data for her stories on demographics. ``It can be frustrating to navigate because there's so much in there,'' she says, ``but it's immensely helpful.''

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