The Web is a good source for information about local issues, events and controversies. But when using Web sources be very selective and critically evaluate the source and the organization sponsoring it.
For social and political issues there is a trick you can use when searching any web search engine that will limit your searches to certain types of organizations, such as government agencies (local and national), non-profit special interest organizations and educational institutions. The trick is adding an extension to your searches.
...site:.gov Governmental Agencies, local and national
...site:.org Special interest non-profit organizations and associations
...site:.edu Educational institutions
For example, to find out what the state of Arizona is doing about the issue of homeless veterans, you can enter:
homeless veterans arizona site:.gov
This will retrieve websites and documents from only governmental agencies at all levels. This is often a great way to find information on policy and practice concerning your issue. You can do the same for site:.org and site:.edu.
site:.org searches retrieve websites and documents from special interest and advocacy groups, most of which are non-profit organizations. These organizations also collect and gather important information about the issues they are created to address and describe the services they offer. Carefully review and evaluate any organizational websites and documents you find for reliability and bias.