Still searching for news

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Dec 17, 2001

In the last few years, we've taken several quick tours of search engines that specialize in tracking down articles from newspapers, magazines and other media resources.

Since our last tour, some of these sites have fallen by the wayside or have been eclipsed by stronger engines, so it's time to take a fresh look and see what's available today.

Below are a few news search engines -- some new, some old -- that I've found useful. If you know of others, I'd love to hear about them. Please send me an e-mail or post a comment in the discussion area.

In addition to these sites, I once again recommend Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch as a good guide for general Web-hunting and for reports of new engines starting up on the Web. His site can be found at http://www.searchenginewatch.com

http://www.daypop.com Daypop bills itself as a "current events search engines" that scans more than 6,000 news sites and weblogs each day. I've been pleased with the results in the short time I've used it. I haven't seen the weblogs feature anywhere else--it gives an interesting glimpse of "personal journalism" sites on the Web and sometimes leads me to useful links I probably wouldn't see otherwise.

http://www.rocketnews.com This site has been around for about three years, but I stumbled upon it only recently. Here you can search for articles stretching back five days. It's quick, well-designed and appears to offer a nice mix of well-known and less familiar news sites. Definitely worth a stop.

http://www.google.com By now, most Web users are probably familiar with the rapid-fire searches provided by Google. It's also a good spot to find current headlines; just click on "news and resources" and you'll an overview of the day's headlines from around the world. It's not the best search engine for live news stories, but I've had some luck using the Web and directory searches to find news articles a few days or a few weeks old.

http://www.alltheweb.com Like Google, this one's zippy. Click on "news" to conduct searches for headline stories. Generally, the results are as reliable as Google, but it appears the searchable news sites vary, so if you can't find it on Google, try it here.

http://www.1stheadlines.com On the front page, you'll find a search function and a list of major news stories, but its most valuable feature is the ability to call up major headlines from large, medium and small U.S. papers, state by state. Want to know what's in Florida papers today? Click on Florida and "go" in the upper-left hand corner, and -- voila -- you have the day's headlines, paper by paper.

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