Help a Reporter Out.com

There's this cool new service for reporters called "Help a Reporter Out." It's a simple concept. Reporters who are looking for source material for a story, or experts to comment on trends, can go to this Web site and type in their query. Several times a day, the Web site's owner, Peter Shankman, sends out queries to a database of thousands of PR professionals who can find the source material requested and contact the reporters.

I would love to see a reverse system start, kind of a story ideas repository that reporters could subscribe to and have queries that match their needs emailed to them.

Anyhow, I've answered a few of Shankman's queries and have had no luck so far, but he reports that many of my colleagues have, so that's encouraging.

Subscribe to the service, it's actually pretty cool.