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- Recent news, other journalism, streaming media
History: Recent news, other journalism, streaming media
Why journalism?
Sometimes called the "first drafts of history," journalistic sources such as newspapers and broadcast transcripts are important as primary sources for historical research and cultural analysis. They can be the best available sources for descriptions and interpretations of recent events, because it typically takes two years after an event for peer-reviewed publications about it to appear. Don't overlook interviews of scholars and other authorities in news stories nor commentaries by academics in editorial/opinion sections. Deadlines mean the news reporters cannot get "all the facts" right in a single story, so look for follow-up stories and for multiple, independent sources to validate claims. Note, too, that the convention that journalism is supposed to be objective, unbiased, and balanced is only about a century old, it is more deeply rooted in the US than elsewhere; and is contested as a professional and/or social value.
This guide identifies the VT Libraries' principal collections of recent and historical news sources, both from the US and abroad; general-purpose databases that provide significant news content alongside academic articles; directories of free online news archives; and Tech's streaming video collections, which offer historical, documentary and dramatic works.
Journalism collections, including historical news archives
Assume that VT Discovery Search (WorldCat Discovery) will not identify most news articles that are available to VT affiliates through library subscriptions. Get familiar with these platforms:
- FactivaThe best source for news coverage from sources outside the US, and/or in languages other than English, Factiva provides full-text news articles and business/industry information from newswires, newspapers, business and industry magazines, transcripts of television and radio programs, financial reports, and photos from news services. In some cases (eg, NY Times, Washington Post) you can choose to search only the printed edition or only the unique content, such as sponsored blogs, of a source's online version. Most Factiva content is not available through VT Discovery Search.
Most content is plain HTML, without illustrations, though other formats are available for export. News source coverage can extend as far back as 1979-present; financial data 1960s-present. - New York Times VT-wide subscription: for the fullest digital access, current VT students, faculty, and staff can obtain an "academic pass" (learn how) using the University Libraries' subscription. All the content of the print edition, plus the digital-only content from nytimes.com (limited access to added-fee sections like Crossword, Cooking, and Wirecutter), teaching and learning materials, and "TimesMachine" archives to 20 years before present. (For more complete archival coverage, see
- Access World News from NewsbankArticles selected from nearly 14,000 American and international newspapers, US magazines, and transcripts (even video clips) of news broadcasts, sometimes dating as far back as 1978. Most sources are in plain text without illustrations. Landing page provides shortcuts to search
- Virginia sources
- Appalachian sources
- News media representations of Black life in America and Hispanic Life in America
- US magazines
- Roanoke Times (1889-2018; 2018-present) and
- Richmond Times-Dispatch (1903-2018; 2018-present; web edition articles, 2015-present).
- Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk) (1865-1990; 2018-present).
- Gale OneFile News Provides articles in plain text (with option to listen to synthesized reader) from newspapers, magazines, selected academic journals, and books. Some still images and videos as well. Formerly known as InfoTrac Newsstand. 1970-present.
- ProQuest News & Newspapers Portal This package of databases indexes citations, abstracts, and some full text for articles from historical and current magazine and newspaper databases on the ProQuest platform. Source publications are mostly US, with significant historical British periodical content. Useful as a front end to searching specialized full-text news collections in plain text (EthnicNewsWatch, GenderWatch), historical newspaper archives in page-image (eg, New York Times, Chicago Defender, Chicago Tribune (and others in the other Black Newspapers collection), Washington Post, and others), and archival collections of US and British popular and trade magazines. Dates of coverage vary by title. Does not include important business/economics newsmagazines (eg, The Economist)) nor trade magazines available in ProQuest One Business (formerly ABI/Inform).
- Latin American News Digest Latin American News Digest aggregates and summarizes in English the news of the Latin American media, with links to the original online articles. Issues appear weekly, with the exception of July, Thanksgiving break and December. Material from these periods appears in expanded, subsequent issues. The Digest issue date represents the news aggregation period.
- Russian/Soviet News Archives from EastView Archival and recent coverage of leading news sources in the former Soviet Union and Russia: Izvestiia (1917-2013) and (
- General News on the Internet Web Archive (from Library of Congress) Contains general news sites (June 2014 onward) with a focus on stories of national interest for all audience levels. The collection contains born-digital publications and publications that were once only available in print and are now only available online. The General News on the Internet Web Archive is an ongoing collecting effort of the US Library of Congress. "Many, if not all, of the Web sites in the collection and elements incorporated into the Web sites (e.g., photographs, articles, graphical representations) are protected by copyright. The materials may also be subject to publicity rights, privacy rights, or other legal interests."
Political news sources
- National JournalThe National Journal database is a comprehensive resource on politics and policy for the academic and practitioner communities, providing National Journal Daily (and archives of the former National Journal Magazine, National Journal Hotline, "Research", and "Race Tracker" news and analyses. Reference services include "Almanac" (biographies), "Infographics" and "Presentations" on policy and politics, and -- especially useful to VT people in the DC Metro area -- "Events" and "Daybook." Set up a personal account to receive email updates and analyses by email.
- CQ Magazine (formerly CQ Weekly) Formerly a close competitor of National Journal, CQ has stumbled in recent years, and the library will not renew its subscription in 2024. Weekly political news magazine featuring in-depth reporting on public policy, politics, congressional legislation, and elections extending back to 1983, including: a complete wrap-up of news on Congress, the status of bills in play, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, committee and floor activity, debates, and all roll-call votes.
- CQ Researcher Plus Archive Begun in 1923 as a service providing background information and pro/con arguments for American editorial writers, CQ Researcher Plus Archive is a window on hot topics in public life across the 20th century as well as a tool to make sense of today's controversies. It can function as starting point for background information, search terms, and topics to use in searching archived journalistic sources. Language and viewpoints in archived reports are products of their time and culture; a browseable "issue tracker" allow you to connect historical and recent discussions without needing to know or use obscure and possibly offensive search terms. Part of CQ Press Library collection of political, news, and reference works.
- EIU ViewpointA key resource for political economy and area studies/comparative politics, EIU Viewpoint integrates Economist Intelligence Unit Country Reports and other forecasts, analyses, news, and data at the global, regional, and country level for almost 200 countries. Some content updated daily. "Two-Year Forecasts" continue approach and format of the former Country Reports; "One-Click Reports" resemble the forecasts but conspicuously do not provide tabular data. Data are interactive and include some visualizations; tables can be exported to Excel. Coverage goes back to 1996. EIU is phasing out the old, less comprehensive EIU.com platform. as
- Economist Intelligence Unit Country Reports Archive, from ProQuest provides digitized versions of original print reports, 1952-1995.
- The best place to read the weekly Economist newsmagazine is the edition in the ProQuest One Business database. For complete coverage from three years before present back to 1843, see the Economist Historical Archive from Gale.
- Global Legal Monitor from US Library of Congress The Global Legal Monitor is an online publication from the Law Library of Congress covering legal news and developments worldwide. It is updated frequently and draws on information from official national legal publications and reliable press sources.
Historical news sources
Newspaper, magazine archives
- Newspapers.com World Collection Newspapers.com World Collection is an extensive database that provides online access to 4,000+ historical newspapers. Dating from the early 1700s into the 2000s, Newspapers.com World Collection contains full runs and portions of runs of well-known, global, regional and state titles to small local newspapers in the United States and other countries.
- NewspaperARCHIVE NewspaperArchive provides page-image archives of newspapers is especially strong in coverage of suburban, small-city, and rural newspapers, with coverage extending from the colonial era to the present in some cases. Similar in concept to Newspapers.com, but stronger in covering sources in languages other than English.This database has very wide scope but its awkward interface lacks the powerful search tools and requires more manual work than newspaper archives from academic library vendors like Newsbank/Readex, Gale, and ProQuest.Do not confuse this package with the Access World News database from Newsbank, which focuses on news sources worldwide, mostly in plain text, from the past few decades.
- Gale Primary Sources: Newspapers As chronicles of a global empire’s rise and transformation, British newspapers offer the most comprehensive (though not unbiased) coverage available in English to world events from the 18th century onward -- including of course events in the US. You can cross-search Gale's British papers among themselves or with Gale's selected 19th century US papers (but not with the US or British papers on the ProQuest, Readex, or other news platforms). You can focus your searches to news; editorial (called "leaders" in the UK) and commentary; people; advertisements; arts, sports and leisure; and business. Some publications still in business add content annually behind a "rolling wall" that limits availability to a fixed number of years before present. 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers British Library Newspapers (1732-1950) Economist Historical Archive (1843-2015) (updates to to ~4 years before present) Financial Times Historical Archive (1888-2016) Illustrated London News Historical Archive (1842-2003) [London] Times Digital Archive (1785-2013) [London] Sunday Times Digital Archive (1822-2006) [London] Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive (1902-2019) 19th Century U.S. Newspapers.
- The Guardian (1821-2003) and The Observer (1791-2003) from ProQuest ProQuest Historical Newspapers editions of sister British newspapers on one platform: The Guardian (formerly Manchester Guardian) and the world's first Sunday newspaper, The Observer. Both papers are associated with the UK mainstream political left (social liberal and social democratic).
- Historical Newspapers from ProQuest Cross-search US ProQuest Historical Newspapers from the main link above or search one at a time. Each paper is available cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images in downloadable PDF format. You can focus searches on portions of the paper, such as front pages, articles, editorials, photos, advertisements, wedding and engagement announcements, cartoons, birth and death announcements, reviews, and more. See the library's journal title finder for later content -- typically without illustrations or ads -- and remember that newspapers merge and/or change names. Atlanta Constitution (1868-1984). Atlanta Daily World* (1931-2003). Baltimore Afro-American* (1893-1988). Chicago Defender* (1909-1975). Chicago Tribune (1849-1990s). (New content added periodically to bring up to 20-25 years before present.) Christian Science Monitor (1908-2004). Cleveland Call and Post* (1934-1991). Los Angeles Sentinel* (1934-2005). Los Angeles Times (1881-1990s). (New content added periodically to bring up to 20-25 years before present.) Michigan Chronicle (1939-Current). New York Amsterdam News* (1922-1993). New York Times (1851-2010s). (New content added periodically to bring up to 3-4 years before present.) Norfolk Journal & Guide* (1916-2003). Philadelphia Tribune* (1911-2002). Pittsburgh Courier*(1912-2001). Wall Street Journal (1889-1998). Washington Post (1877-2000s). (New content added periodically to bring up to 15-20 years before present.) *Part of ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Newspaper Collection. For more recent coverage of African-American newspapers, in plain text, see another ProQuest news database, Ethnic NewsWatch.
- America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922 from Readex Cover-to-cover facsimiles of 1,000+ US newspapers in PDF. Restrict searches to dates/eras, article types (news & opinion, election returns, letters, poetry/songs, legislative, prices, advertisements, matrimony & death notices), region/state, and newspaper name. Comprises five series of Early American Newspapers, two series of African American Newspapers 1827-1999 (350+ papers), and specific newspapers of regional interest, including Richmond Times Dispatch, 1903-86, Roanoke Times, 1889-2018, Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk), 1865-1990, and the complete run of the Washington Evening Star, the most influential DC paper from the Civil War era into the 1960s.
- Associated Press Collections Online from Gale Associated Press Collections provide primary sources in journalism. The U.S. City Bureau collection has wire copy, correspondence, and newsletters from the post-WW2 period. The Washington, DC, Bureau Collection has records covering presidents, elections, political events, and biographies for 1938-2009. Also searchable with other news sources in Gale's Primary Sources (formerly called Artemis) portal.
- Magazine Archive from EBSCOhost Cover to cover coverage in full-page images of digital archives of Architectural Digest (1920-2011), Forbes 1917-2000), Life (1936-2000), and National Review (955-present.) . Cross-search all magazines in full text (including words in advertising) using the familiar EbscoHost search interface. To restrict your search by publication, change the search field menu to sources (SO= ), and enter the name of the magazine. Clicking on the article title in the search results box may appear to produce nothing; select PDF Full Text option in a record to view that item. Browsing is difficult in the EbscoHost platform: It is easier to search the library's journal-title database for the bold-faced title or ISSN in the list above, select the magazine archive version, then pick publication year and drill down to an issue's table of contents to pick the article. To browse directly from one article to another, use PDF link in the left sidebar to browse through an issue in five-page increments or to navigate to another issue.
- Independent Voices Independent Voices provides alternative press newspapers and magazines, in image and PDF formats, from the last half of the 20th century.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA) from ProQuest The Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA) is a digital high-resolution archive of over 40 US and UK trade and consumer magazines covering the broad spectrum of the entertainment industry and media including film, television, popular music, radio, and theatre. Titles include Variety (1905-2000), Billboard (1894-2000), Spin (1985-2000), Broadcasting & Cable (1931-2000), Vibe (1993-2014) and more. Each title includes individual indexing of articles, covers, ads, and reviews.
Broadcast news archives
- Television Archive, 2009- (from Internet Archive) Newscasts and news-related programs from local network-affiliated TV stations in the US, with some international sources. See also Internet Archive's TV News content arranged under various categories and its audio archive of recent and historical News & Public Affairs radio broadcasts.
- Meet the Press (1947-2013) from Alexander Street The archetype of the Sunday morning TV news “talking heads” show in streaming video with full transcriptions, the Meet the Press archive comprises thousands of interviews, panels, and debates about people and topics in the news — more than 1,500 hours. Alexander Street's search interface permits you to make clips and playlists for use in presentations.
- C-SPAN Video Library The C-SPAN Video Library records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses. Programs are indexed by subject, speaker names, titles, affiliations, sponsors, committees, categories, formats, policy groups, keywords, and location. The congressional sessions and committee hearings are indexed by person with full-text. 1987-present.
- NBC News Archives from Getty Images With some content dating to the late 1948s, the NBC News Archives is the oldest television news collection in the United States, featuring programs from NBC's news division and MSNBC. Segments can be viewed in the platform, but special licenses are usually required to download or reuse files. Browse within broad subjects or use the search box within the NBC banner image. (The top-of-page search box covers the whole Getty platform -- which is set up to market images and footage, with various kinds of licenses.)
Directories of online news archives, mostly free, from around the world
- Newspaper Archives, Indexes & Morgues Lengthy list of online newspaper archive portals in the US (including many -- but not all -- state-level projects) and abroad. Indexes online may help you locate materials in microfilm. "Morgues" are the clipping (or "vertical") files maintained in particular newspapers. From the Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room at the Library of Congress.
- International Coalition on Newspapers: Digitization Projects ICON directory "highlights and links to past, present, and prospective digitization projects of historic newspapers" from around the world, both free and proprietary, in various languages. Arranged by country, then state/province. Links to fee-based resources will not work: use the VT journal-title finder to connect to that Tech subscribes to. From the Center for Research Libraries.
Databases offering significant news content (among other genres)
- General OneFile from Gale Gale General OneFile indexes citations and full text from magazines, newspapers, news program transcripts, travel guides, and reference works. Formerly branded InfoTrac. 1980-present.
- Academic Search Complete from EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete indexes citations, abstracts, and full text from journal articles, books, reports, and conference proceedings in all subject disciplines. Full text provided in PDF and HTML. Searchable cited references are provided for nearly 1,000 journals. Searches can be limited to peer reviewed sources. Indexing 1887-present, most full-text content 1980s-present.
- ProQuest One Business Expanding on the former ABI/Inform, ProQuest One Business is an important source for scholarship and the trade press about management of public and nonprofit organizations, organization theory, organization behavior, and other areas where social science intersects business. ProQuest One Buseinss indexes citations, abstracts, and full text news articles, market, industry reports, country reports, downloadable data sets, dissertations, business cases, working papers, annual reports from North American companies, and company profiles and histories. You can limit searches to peer-reviewed journals. Full text provided in HTML and PDF. 1971-present
- MasterFILE Premier from EBSCOhost MasterFILE Premier contains full text for nearly 1,700 periodicals covering general reference, business, health, education, general science, multicultural issues and much more. This database also contains full text for nearly 500 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 502,000 photos, maps & flags. MasterFILE Premier offers PDF backfiles (as far back as 1975) for key publications including American Libraries, Foreign Affairs, History Today, Judaism, Library Journal, National Review, Saturday Evening Post, etc.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 from EBSCOhost Reader's Guide Retrospective indexes citations to articles published in popular magazines and newspapers published in the United States.
Tools for analyzing news sources
- Media CloudBy tracking millions of stories published online, Media Cloud's suite of tools allows researchers to track how stories and ideas spread through media. The tools are designed to aggregate, analyze, deliver and visualize information, answering complex quantitative and qualitative questions about the content of online media. Sign up for free personal account to use all the features. Media Cloud is a joint project by the MIT Center for Civic Media and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
- GDELT Project"GDELT Project is an open platform for research and analysis of global society" through mining news media from around the world published since 1979, in 100 languages. GDELT offers a free online analysis service of the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone , Google BigQuery, and -- for digital humanities and computational analysis-- dataset downloads.
Streaming media (film, broadcast, internet)
Broad-based video collections
These are your best options for finding classroom-legal versions of programs originally offered on consumer-oriented streaming platforms like Netflix or Amazon, whose licenses exclude library use. This list highlights streaming sources that provide content most directly related to historical and social science inquiry. It is not an exhaustive directory to all our library's video providers.
- Academic Video Online from ProQuestAcademic Video Online provides 70,000 streaming videos: documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs and newsreels, arthouse movies, TV programs, and more. Public performance rights are included for all films except Film Platform content. AVON builds on our former Alexander Street streaming video collection, including highlights named below. Two search interfaces:
- Standard Proquest search (for latop/desktop users) ; Visual interface (for phones, tablets, etc)
- American History in Video. Historical newsreels, archived news broadcasts as well as recent documentaries.
- Meet the Press Archive (1947-2013). Decades of interviews from the archetypal Sunday-morning TV news “talking heads” show.
- Engineering Case Studies Online. Documentaries, accident reports, experiments, visualizations, case studies, lectures and interviews from leading engineering institutions
- Kanopy Streaming VideosKanopy provides hundreds of streaming videos in a wide variety of subjects. For videos outside our collection, you'll be presented a form to request they be added.
NOTE: As of Spring 2021 Kanopy made changes to links and access, so older links to streaming videos on the platform will no longer work. Please update any links to Kanopy videos in Canvas, syllabi, etc, with the new URLs: the new base URL for Kanopy is https://vt.kanopy.com/, and links for specific specific videos use the following format: https://vt.kanopy.com/video/slavery-another-name. - Docuseek2 Complete CollectionDocuseek contains over 1500 documentaries by producers, distributors, and independent filmmakers from around the world. The documentaries focus on contemporary social issues in a variety of disciplines, including environmental sciences, political and social sciences, history, health, psychology, and more. The collection includes exclusive access to content from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution, including Bullfrog Films, Icarus Films, KimStim Films, Kartemquin Films, National Film Board of Canada Films, Fanlight Films, ScorpionTV, MediaStorm, dGenerate Films and Terra Nova Films.
- Films on DemandFilms on Demand provides streaming documentaries and educational films on many topics and genres, notably including
- Archival films and historical newsreels and
- "World cinema" collection.
- Swank Digital CampusSwank offers over 1,000 streaming videos: popular movies, documentaries, and foreign films. Swank offers over 1,000 streaming videos: popular movies, documentaries, and foreign films. The available titles are revised by the vendor near the beginning of every academic year.
- Locally hosted video ('Newman Library Documentaries' on Kaltura)Streaming videos made from selected DVDs in VT Libraries collection -- we were able to purchase additional streaming rights. VT login required.
- Moving Image Archive (Internet Archive)Non-profit digital library archives millions of free digitized movies and broadcasts (even advertising), along with music, websites, software, and scanned periodicals and books.
Specialized media collections
Though covering many things, events, and people, these collections are curated within boundaries such as topic, creator, or medium. Free sources may become unavailable at any time.
- Platino EducaPlatino Educa offers unlimited access to hundreds of Spanish and Ibero-American movies, classified by subjects and covering themes across the Environment, Social Sciences, Language and Literature, Arts, and Social Justice. Films have Spanish and English subtitles.
- Digitalia Film LibraryDozens of streaming documentary and dramatic films selected from a much larger package of films that we dio not subscribe to. From the same vendor as our Digitalia Hispanica database, but not linked to it.
- Socialism on Film from Adam MatthewSocialism on Film provides streaming video from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture, and society from the 20th century and countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain, and Cuba.
- C-SPAN Video Libraryrecords, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses. Programs are indexed by subject, speaker names, titles, affiliations, sponsors, committees, categories, formats, policy groups, keywords, and location. The congressional sessions and committee hearings are indexed by person with full-text. 1987-present.
- American Archive of Public BroadcastingAAPB is a collection of 40,000 hours of public radio and television broadcasts. Alongside significant national programs, APB offers mostly of regional and local programs that document American communities since the mid-20th century: local news and public affairs programs, local history productions that document the heritage of local communities, and programs dealing with education, environmental issues, music, art, literature, dance, poetry, religion, and even film-making on a local level. Searchable and browseable by topic and participating broadcaster
- NBC News Archives from Getty Images With some content dating to the late 1948s, the NBC News Archives is the oldest television news collection in the United States, featuring programs from NBC's news division and MSNBC. Segments can be viewed in the platform, but special licenses are usually required to download or reuse files. Browse within broad subjects or use the search box within the NBC banner image. (The top-of-page search box covers the whole Getty platform -- which is set up to market images and footage, with various kinds of licenses.)
- Presidential SpeechesThe Scripps Library at the University of Virginia, through cooperation with various presidential libraries, has been collecting some of the most important presidential speeches in American history. These speeches all have transcripts, and some are available in their entirety in audio or video. 1789-present. One of UVA Miller Center's American President collections of primary and secondary sources.