Evaluating News
News includes many formats, including newspaper articles, investigative journalism, magazines, trade publications (news for a specific field, such as higher education or chemical engineering), broadcast journalism, and online news websites. How can you tell if you're looking at a quality news source?
- The publisher or news organization should be easy to spot
- Google the news organization - they should have a website, Wikipedia page, and be referenced in other sources
- Pay careful attention to the date
- More reliable news sources list an individual author - you should be able to find their credentials and journalistic history
- More reliable news sources list sources and accurately represent the claims in those sources
- Google a few things about the article or click around on the news website
Below, you'll find some news publications the SU Libraries subscribe to. These are great places to start.
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Interactive Media Bias ChartConsider using the interactive Media Bias Chart to learn more about the biases and quality of general news organizations. The 11th edition static version of the chart can also be found at the bottom of this page for quick reference.
Find News, Magazines, and Popular Presses
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ProQuest Newspapers This link opens in a new windowIncludes the full text of these newspapers: The Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
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BuildingGreen Suite This link opens in a new windowBuildingGreen brings together articles from environmental building news, products from GreenSpec Directory, and project case studies from High-Performance Buildings Database.
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Chronicle of Higher Education This link opens in a new windowIncludes news, opinions, jobs, advice, and more regarding higher education.
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Regional Business News This link opens in a new windowProvides comprehensive full text for regional business publications (including titles from Crain Communications). This database has full text for more than 60 sources.
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MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new windowDesigned specifically for public libraries, this database contains full text for nearly 1,700 periodicals back to 1975, provides nearly 500 full text reference books, over 164,400 primary source documents, and a 592,000 photo Image Collection.
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ScienceQuality science news articles from trusted journalists and contributing editors, many of whom are working scientists and professors.
Static Media Bias Chart
