Exploring the validity of electronic newspaper databases

Do electronic newspaper databases contain all of the stories that appear in the print edition? And does this depend on the database used? To explore these questions, we collected print copies of newspapers from cities across the USA and Canada. We compared coverage of two topics in these newspapers with the coverage obtained from keyword searches in three electronic newspaper databases. We conclude that the stories obtained through electronic searches are consistent across databases but can vary from the print source. Importantly, national and international coverage is more likely to be missing than local or statewide/provincial coverage. Keywords: content analysisvalidityelectronic databasesnewspapers Notes 1. ProQuest began distributing electronic material on CD-ROM in the 1980s and moved to electronic distribution in 1996. Lexis-Nexis began providing desktop access to select newspapers using personal computers in 1979; web-based distribution began in 1994 and catered to legal professionals. It is unclear when NewsBank began distributing newspaper content electronically. 2. These dates were chosen for convenience but seemed fairly unremarkable in terms of news content. The big national story in most newspapers was Tea Party protests across the USA. The big international story was piracy off the coast of Somalia. 3. This does raise the issue of whether one's results are consistent over time. For another project, we repeated these searches on various days and found very little variation at all depending on the search day. Indeed, we got the exact same number of hits when we repeated the search on 18 May as on 11 May. 4. The Boston Herald does not have a 'metro' section per se, as it is a tabloid. We therefore searched for articles from the first and second pages of the newspapers. At the time we conducted this analysis, the Des Moines Register was no longer available in any of the three databases. 5. To be consistent with our electronic searchers, the coder did not note mentions of 'Mr. Obama,' 'President Obama,' or other variations on his name in the print copies of the newspapers. 6. Each of the electronic databases allows one to search wire service stories separately, which may be helpful in determining whether a newspaper uploads wire service content to the database. 7. Interview was conducted via email on 21 October 2009. 8. Graber relies upon data from The State of the News Media 2004 report, produced by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. 9. Quite simply, since approaches to uploading content vary from newspaper to newspaper and from database to database, we mean that the researcher would need to sit down and scan all of the results retrieved to see whether any letters to the editor, editorials, photo captions, or wire service stories (i.e. those types of content often excluded from an electronic database) appear or not. 10. Google. News (publishers) help. 'Restricted Content.' Retrieved 16 August 2011, from http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68331.