Introduction

Browsers

Newsgroups

Listservs

Indexes

Searches

Evaluating sites

Mass media

Government

Specialized sites

Reference

Glossary

Mass Media Searches

     Most Web sites of newspapers, TV networks and other mass media provide search engines for their own content. That can be useful if you are looking for material on a topic that was, for example, broadcast on CNN or printed in the New York Times.
     If, however, you are doing research on a topic and want material from a variety of sources, or you don't know what sources might have published something on the topic, searching Web sites medium by medium can be time-consuming and a lot of trouble.
     For most of the Web's history, traditional search engines provided little help with topics currently in the news. The delay between the time something appeared on a Web site and the time it showed up in a search engine's database made searches for material on current events frustrating.
     Recently, however, some search engines that specialize in news reports have appeared. Similarly, some of the traditional search engines have added features that provide fairly up-to-date searches of news sites. If you want information from media coverage of a topic that has been in the news recently, you should have a good chance of finding it now.
     Here are some sites that can help you search for news coverage of current events.

Caution: Some news sites charge for access to items in their archives, and some relocate files from current status to archives after a week or two. Don't be surprised if some links from these search engines' hits turn out to be no longer valid or ask for payment for access to the file. In the latter case, if you want the article but don't want to pay for it, you can make a note of the date of publication, page, etc. and then go to a library to find the article in print.

Topix.net

     This site is out of alphabetical order for two reasons: 1) It's the newest site on this page. 2) It doesn't offer the same kinds of searches as the other sites listed here.
     Topix just went online about the time this class began -- in early March 2004. It offers quite a collection of news, which the site says come from 3,600 sources. The opening page of the site provides news on a variety of topcs. More news in specific categories is available by clicking on a tab at the top or a heading down the page. 
     The unusual feature of this site, however, is the way it provides regional news. The left side of the opening page contains a list of names of many cities in the United States. Clicking on one of them will open a page with news from that city and the surrounding area. Moreover, if you want news from an area not listed, you can enter its ZIP Code into a box near the top of the page. The resulting page will contain news about that area.
     Caution: The geographic search feature at Topix appears to be a bit faulty. Doing a search by ZIP Code sometimes brings results from hundreds of miles from the area you specified.

AltaVista News

     Beyond the search box in which you enter your term(s), four pull-down menus help you fine-tune your search for news on AltaVista's site. You can narrow your search by topic, region of the world, news source and time frame. A check box also allows you to retrieve only stories with images if you prefer that option.

Daypop

     The basic page provides a search box for your term(s) and a menu with four options. I suggest that you select the News option to limit your search to news media. If you leave the default All Pages, you may find some results from Weblogs, which are like journals posted on the Web by individuals. Those may be interesting, but they would have limited value for journalistic purposes. The advanced page lets you limit how far back items were published. It also lets you include or exclude languages and countries for results.

Google News

     Part of Google's ever-expanding multi-service search site, this service was named Best News Search Engine by Search Engine Watch for 2002, 2003 and 2004.
     You can reach Google's news page through the link above or by clicking on the News tab on Google's main page. Besides the ability to search for news, the page also offers current news stories in a variety of categories.
     As of early March 2006, the site indicated that it allowed searching and browsing of more than 4,500 continuously updated news sources.

Yahoo!

     The old standby of directories offers two levels of searches for news stories. You can reach the same search pages from Yahoo!'s start page, but the links above will save you a few clicks. (If you see a message saying, "Sorry, no news stories were found containing" when you click on the basic search link, don't worry. That's because you reached the page without entering a search term.) 
     The advanced search page lets you specify a number of items -- especially time frame and sources -- to fine-tune your search. Beware of hits that are preceded by dollar signs. They will cost money if you retrieve them.
     Yahoo!'s news site was ranked second to Google's in Search Engine Watch's awards in 2002-2004.