Searching press? Why databases may not be enough
It’s often said that journalism is the first rough draft of history. Unfortunately, like most rough drafts, press reports aren’t always perfect and can contain incomplete information or outright errors.
Nevertheless, press reports are indispensable to the kind of investigative research that is our stock-in-trade at 221B Partners. So, to mark World News Day (September 28), a global effort to celebrate journalism’s role in benefitting society, we thought we’d discuss the role journalism plays in investigations. The fact is that most events never make it into history books, and press coverage is often the only record available.
For example, wedding announcements and obituaries are super convenient ways to determine the names of a subject’s family members and may also include small but potentially significant details such as a spouse’s maiden name or a previously unknown employer or nonprofit affiliation. Business news reports can help confirm information found in a subject’s resume, such as when they started at their current job, or provide additional context around why he or she left a previous employer. On more than one occasion I’ve found local news stories about car accidents involving a subject, or police blotter items with the subject’s name, that never showed up in a search of court records. Even a seemingly innocuous news feature story or photo may contain useful information placing the subject at a given location at a given time, or shedding light on a previously unknown personal hobby.
Beyond the Usual Suspects
Searching the vast universe of press reports can be a bit daunting, and often requires looking far beyond a simple Lexis or Factiva press search, although that is the logical place to begin, assuming you have access. And even if you don’t, your local library or college may offer access for free.
Searching press databases is as much an art as a science. The first order of business is determining the platform’s preferred search language so you can build a search string that brings you the sorts of news articles you are looking for without drowning in a sea of results. It is also important to understand different ways to filter results – such as by date, location of publication, etc. If you get thousands of results, some databases let you search for keywords that appear in headlines, or in the first paragraph of the story to make your search more manageable. Getting the most out of a press database search requires a bit of strategy and a lot of familiarity with how they work. Sometimes it also requires patience and some trial and error.
But press databases are just the first place to look. Below are some other useful ideas for finding press reports that may not appear in databases.
Sites like Factiva and Lexis are great at indexing articles from large and medium-sized publications, but often do not include local publications with smaller circulations. Google sometimes picks up these articles as part of its indexing of the web. In addition, local news articles that have been saved in pdf form and posted online may show up in Google search results, including articles that were never posted online in the first place, such as older news articles before the web was a thing.
Newspapers.com
Newspapers.com is an excellent archival newspaper site, featuring more than one billion newspaper pages from more than 26,000 papers, mostly from the U.S., and some dating back centuries. The site is especially useful when searching for articles from the pre-Internet age, so stories from the 20th Century and earlier. As an example, I ran my grandfather’s name through the site just to see what came up and quickly found a 1941 story in a local paper about a break-in at his clothing store on Chicago’s South Side. Random finds like this make searching Newspapers.com a lot of fun but are also super useful in finding old wedding announcements, obituaries and other lifecycle events you may not find anywhere else. Newspapers.com requires a paid subscription, but you may be able to access it for free at your local library. And speaking of libraries …
The Local Library
There was a time decades ago when libraries proudly displayed a variety of international, national and local newspapers on their shelves for patrons to peruse. Nowadays visiting a library is more of a digital experience, where even the old-school card catalog has often been replaced by a computer terminal. But your local library may also be the only place that still has copies of the local newspaper, including those that have long since gone out of business or are now online-only. These papers may still be found in physical form but more likely have been preserved digitally on the library’s website or using an older technology such as microfilm or microfiche. Your reference librarian can help you find what you’re looking for, even if you’re not quite sure what that is and just want to do a general review of a topic or time period. For the most local of news stories, those that fly below the radar of Google or Newspapers.com, the local library is likely your best bet.
As important as ever
Despite all the changes impacting journalism in recent years – shrinking newsrooms, the growing influence of social media, etc. – press searches are as important to an investigation today as ever. Whether it’s a recent news article describing a brewing controversy that has yet to make its way to court, or a long-buried piece of critical information found in an old newspaper clipping, press research is a vital piece of any due diligence exercise, background investigation, or any case type that calls for a deeper understanding of events beyond what’s found in official government documents or in social media.