Yes, Google’s newly launched News Archive Search is a great boon to those lacking subscriptions to super expensive public record/newspaper/academic databases - all the news going back decades that’s unclassified and fit to print - such as LexisNexis and JSTOR.
For a few dollars a shot, bloggers can now sample what journalists have become totally hooked on.
Click over to one place and search. Cut and paste from a clutch of database cuttings. Leaving no citations to indicate that your great thoughts aren’t your great thoughts alone, damn, you sound authoritative.
Due respect to old skool Google, but you won’t want to go back. It’s like coca leaves v. crack cocaine.
And you won’t talk about it. In the last month, no journalist at any British quality newspaper, not the Guardian nor the Times nor the Telegraph, has mentioned, casually, in passing, that he or she uses LexisNexis. No mention in any US newspaper either. But everyone’s doing it. Quick and easy access to vast databases of information must be one of the most significant changes to journalistic practice in recent years.
