The easy way to tell would be to go to wherever you want to go, look at the source, and see if there's anything usable there. But that's just the check to see if there's something usable; once you see it, that will tell you how (or if) to parse it out.
There are probably also places you can get raw data, but I would bet they charge for it. (In fact, I think MSNBC is simply licensing someone else's data, or at least I remember seeing "courtesy so-and-so" during the tv credits.)
And we welcome you.I welcome the sarcastic, mean programmers with no girlfriends as well!!!