Newspapers, Current Events, and Elections: Home

Q:  Wait, what?  Isn't there already more free news on the Web than I could ever read?  

A;  Well, yes.  But not all the news you want to read is free on the Web.  And some of that paywalled news that you want to read is free via the Evergreen Library.  The Olympian, for example. Also The Seattle Times and The Wall Street Journal.  And many more.

Q:  Are there pros and cons to getting your news via the library?

A;  You bet!

PROS:  It is free!  And you can do sophisticated keyword searches across many news sources at once.

Also, Newsbank now provides "Image Editions" of nearly 200 newspapers:  images of the full text of every page, including photos, graphs, ads, etc.  Typically Image Edition coverage only goes back 1-4 years.  For instance, you can see every page of the Olympian from 2018 until now here.  Every page of the Seattle Times from 2017.  And every page of the Houston Chronicle from 2017.  For a full list of titles:  [tba].

CONS:

1. In most cases, you get only the text of the articles, not the layout, not images, not graphs, etc and you generally get only articles that were published in the print version of the paper; usually you do not get Web-only content.
   But see the note about Newsbank's Image Editions just above.  
   Also, Newsbank and Proquest Newsstream provide access to the Web-only content of some newspapers.  For example, Proquest Newsstream has the Wall Street Journal Web edition, and Newsbank has the Olympian (Web Edition)
2. "Today's" news is sometimes made available late in the day, and, since the print paper is published very early in the morning (if not the night before),  it is actually yesterday's news.
3. Occasionally, entire issues are missing, or some number of articles from some issues will be missing.  This is more often the case with smaller regional newspapers than with the larger national papers.  (Newsbank's PDF image editions, though, are complete).

Q:  I see that we have pretty current access to many newspapers.  What about access to the archives, the really old stuff?

A:  We have access to some "really old stuff".  Some of it is online, some in print, some in microfilm.  If interested, contact a librarian.

Q:  Is there some sort of colorful chart that would show me which national news sources are the most fact-oriented and the least propagandistic, and which lean right or left (and how hard they lean)?

A:  Why yes, there is.  The Media Bias Chart attempts to do exactly that.  Probably no two people would draw this chart in exactly the same way, but it is an interesting exercise nevertheless.

Q:  So what are some of the major national newspapers that I can get via the Evergreen Library?

A:

New York Times (1980 - present) (via Proquest)
Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition:  1984 - present) (via Proquest)

 Includes only articles appearing in the print edition

Wall Street Journal (Online: 2010 - present) (via Proquest)

Includes online only articles, and just-published online articles that will later in the day be in the Eastern Edition, often with different headlines and other revisions.

Washington Post (2003 - present) (via Ebsco)
Los Angeles Times (1996 - present) (via Proquest)
Chicago Tribune (1997 - present) (via Proquest)
Chicago Tribune (1985 - 1997) (via Proquest)
Miami Herald (1982 - present) (via NewsBank)
Houston Chronicle (1985 - present) (via NewsBank)
USA Today (1987 - present) (via NewsBank)
Chronicle of Higher Education (past and current)

Q:  What are some regional newspapers from the PNW that the library has access to (most PNW regional newspapers are found in NewsBank)?

A:
The Olympian (2001 - today) (OR all editions)
Seattle Times (1985 - today) (OR all editions)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (1986 - yesterday)
The Columbian (Vancouver WA) (1994 - 2 days ago)
The Oregonian (1987 - 1 week ago)

. . . and more

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (1990 - present) (via NewsBank)
Cleveland Plain-Dealer (1989 - present) (via NewsBank)
Louisville Courier-Journal (1999  present) (via Proquest)
Arizona Republic (1999 - present) (via Proquest)
Oakland Tribune (2001 - present) (recent archives via Proquest; current access via NewsBank)

. . .  and more

Afro American Red Star 
Arab American News (2007 - current) 
Chicago Citizen (2008 - (almost) present) 
News From Native California (1996 - present) 

and much more . . .

Q:  What about News Magazines, like Jacobin, The Nation, The Financial Times?  Many of these publications make a lot of their articles free on their websites, but some of the best articles are always paywalled.

A:

NEW in 2021:  The Economist (1988 - present)

Jacobin
The Nation Archive (1865 - )
Financial Times (1982 - one month ago)
Newsweek Global (1984 - present)
New Yorker (1985 - present)
Chronicle of Higher Education (all issues, including current)
Consumer Reports (1988 - present)

. . . and more

Q:  So if I see an article on the Olympian website, but can't read it because of their paywall, I can find it through the Evergreen Library?

A:  Usually Newsbank will have it. But Newsbank has several different editions of The Olympian.  An article that only appeared online (but not in print) would appear in the Web-Only Edition..  But an article that was in the print edition will appear in the "Newspaper" and the "Image" editions.

Articles that originated elsewhere and were reproduced on the Olympian website most likely won't be in any of the editions we have access to, unless it also appeared in the actual print newspaper, in which case it would be in the "Image" edition. 

Newsbank and Proquest Newsstream both have "Web-Only" editions for a number of titles.