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Searching for news

© Daryl Lease

Earlier this month, we took a look at Web sites that offer daily, hourly or up-to-the-minute listings of headlines in the news. Those URLs are useful, but if you're looking for information on a specific event or trying to track down an article that's a bit older than a hour ago, you'll need a specialized search engine.

As best I can tell, there are about a dozen sites that search the wires and major newspapers for news items. I haven't found anything as in-depth or on-target as Web-searchers like Fast or Anzwers, but there are several news trackers that do a fairly comprehensive job.

Below are a few news trackers I've found useful. For more on the topic, check out Danny Sullivan's Search Alert column in the February issue of Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. (I couldn't find an online version of the piece, but YIL is available at http://www.zdnet.com/yil/ ) I'd also recommend Sullivan's Search Engine Watch as a good guide for general Web-hunting. It's at http://www.searchenginewatch.com

http://www.newstrawler.com

As Sullivan points out, Newstrawler isn't the most user-friendly news tracker available, but it's quick and -- from what I've found -- the most comprehensive and on-target. It offers simultaneous searches of several dozen national and regional newspapers. On the trial searches I ran, a few turned up error messages, but most were productive. Unfortunately, quite of few of them linked to articles you'll have to buy to read. The freebies are usually offered for stories a week or two older; after that, you have to cough up a credit card number.

http://www.poynter.org/search/index.htm

This site, dubbed Nelson and billed as THE Search Tool for Journalists, is offered by the Poynter Institute. If you're on hunt, I'd recommend a stop here as well as Newstrawler.

I've found the searches frustrating at times -- the date-range function doesn't seem to work, for one thing--but I'm told the folks at Poynter are working on some fixes. Nelson offers more than a search of newspapers, by the way. You'll also find a tool for search for beat-related sites and journalism groups. It's a must-visit.

http://www.northernlight.com

Northern Light offers searches of the Web, newspapers and a variety of other sources in its "special collections" file. It zeroes in on the topic fairly well. It's worth a stop.

http://nt.excite.com http://altavista.com

These are the old pros of searching, of course, and -- portals being portals--they gotta offer newstrackers too. I'm not terribly impressed with either one's ability to hunt down hard-to-find articles, but they're good for tracking down major headlines and common topics. Excite's Newstracker offers a customized service that allows you to "clip" items on topics of special interest, such as your favorite baseball team or an issue-of-the-day.