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Poligraft Highlights Political and Financial Connections in Online Text

by Terrence O'Brien on August 5, 2010 at 08:20 AM

Poligraft
If, like this blogger, you have a bit of a political streak, the last several years have been a boon to your obsession. The Web has put just about every fact, figure and document at your fingertips, if you know where to look. But, if you're not obsessive, you might never know, for instance, that the sponsor of a new pro-ethanol bill receives most of his campaign contributions from the National Corn Growers Association. The Sunlight Foundation is looking to simplify the task of tracking political cash with Poligraft, a site that identifies politicians, companies and industries mentioned in news articles, and draws the connections to them in a side bar.

Poligraft's easy-to-use bookmarklet quickly parses the text of any article you're reading on the Web and lays out the financial connections for you. Sadly, though, the site is not available at the moment. After completing a trial run, Poligraft has been taken down for some last-minute tweaks before the 2010 election season. But you can add this bookmarket to your browser in the meantime. [From: Atlantic and Sunlight Foundation]

Tags: 2010SenateRaces, bookmarklet, campaignfinance, government, lobbying, lobbyists, poligraft, politics, SunlightFoundation, top, web

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