If any of y'all see what I tweet you know how often I give a s/o or a RT to the Sunlight Foundation. I stumbled onto them one day and I honestly believe everyone should know the work that they do. Keeping up with Congress and the government in general can be difficult. Honestly, it is a full time job and that's why we have journalists (or that's why we originally have journalists--don't get me started). The Sunlight Foundation has tools so that you can be aware of the politics that matters most to you or you can learn more everyday.
The first tool I love is Scout. Scout is amazing. You simply type in the issue, bill, politician or topic that matters most to you. From there you can either get emails or texts when your item is discussed or voted on--how cool is that? If you want to keep up with what your represetative is doing? Great! Want to know what's happening with student loans? Awesome! Scout can help you keep up with whatever you need to keep up with.
Another great tool is Churnalism. In my Media and Politics class, we learned that often times, the things we read in the newspaper are actually not from journalists but from PR firms, trying to put news out there about their client, products etc. Churnalism is great because if you are reading an article online, you just click the toolbar button, and it analyzes the article to see if it is related to any press-releases. Talk about knowing that you are getting the cold, hard truth.
Open Congress and Clear Spending are great ways to learn exactly what the government is doing with Open Congress allowing you to track bills, votes and discussions as it happens in real time. Clear Spending allows you to see if your tax dollars are being spent in a timely, orderly fashion.
This is just a handful of the tools they provide people across the country and the globe. Check out sunlightfoundation.org for more information about any of their products and the work that they do to make our government more accountable.
The first tool I love is Scout. Scout is amazing. You simply type in the issue, bill, politician or topic that matters most to you. From there you can either get emails or texts when your item is discussed or voted on--how cool is that? If you want to keep up with what your represetative is doing? Great! Want to know what's happening with student loans? Awesome! Scout can help you keep up with whatever you need to keep up with.
Another great tool is Churnalism. In my Media and Politics class, we learned that often times, the things we read in the newspaper are actually not from journalists but from PR firms, trying to put news out there about their client, products etc. Churnalism is great because if you are reading an article online, you just click the toolbar button, and it analyzes the article to see if it is related to any press-releases. Talk about knowing that you are getting the cold, hard truth.
Open Congress and Clear Spending are great ways to learn exactly what the government is doing with Open Congress allowing you to track bills, votes and discussions as it happens in real time. Clear Spending allows you to see if your tax dollars are being spent in a timely, orderly fashion.
This is just a handful of the tools they provide people across the country and the globe. Check out sunlightfoundation.org for more information about any of their products and the work that they do to make our government more accountable.
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