Research Guides: Immigration Research Guide: News Resources

A wall decorated with flags is seen in the "Global Village" of the German Emigration Center at the Old Harbour of Bremerhaven, northern Germany, on Monday, Aug. 8, 2005. The new museum illustrates the history of more than seven million emigrants who started their travel to their new home countries from here. The flags represent the destination countries. (AP Photo/Focke Strangmann)

Immigration activists hold hands in front of Freedom Tower in downtown Miami, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

Migrants arrive at the harbor in Ragusa, Italy after a boat was intercepted by the Italian coast guard on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011. At the time of this photo, another 6000 Tunisians were being held on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, awaiting transfer to immigrant holding centers throughout the county. (AP Photo/ Lapresse)

Naturalization ceremony, Wednesday, July 19, 2006, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. Over 200 new U.S. citizens were sworn in from 61 different countries. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)

Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito, right, greets people as he arrives to the Japanese Immigration Museum in Sao Paulo, Friday, June 20, 2008. Naruhito was in Brazil to take part in celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Latin America's largest country. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

A Syrian immigrant shows a V-sign decorated as the revolutionary Syrian flag during a rally against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

E-Resources: News and Public Opinion

Although it's easy enough to find the home pages for major news outlets and although megasites (like ABYZnewslinks) are often quite useful, you'll need to have additional resources at the ready, in case you encounter pay-walls or need fuller, deeper access than what these free resources provide. Below, we've identified and briefly described some of your options.

You can get to these e-resources (library "databases" as they're sometime called) through the HOLLIS catalog, but the fastest route is via the Databases page, linked from Hollis. Simply type the name of the database or a subject term in the box at the top of the screen or click on one of the subject terms below..

If you are off-campus (or in a non-library location), you will be asked to "authenticate" (i.e., sign in with your Harvard ID and password) before you can use these databases.

General News Sites (U.S. and world)

Nexis Uni: a standard library database for English language news, it allows you to search thousands of newspapers and newswires and to see the articles, in full-text format, back to about 1980. Searches can cover international, national, regional and local news sources. The database also allows you to search news broadcasts (radio and TV).

Factiva: consider this e-resource as your best alternative to LexisNexis Academic. Owned by the Dow Jones company, it allows you to search across 8000 or so news publications from the U.S. and around the world. Some news publications that are not available in full-text in LexisNexis (the Wall Street Journal being one famous example) will be accessible in Factiva and depending on the title, full-text coverage sometimes extends further back than the 1980 cut-off point for Lexis-Nexis.

Regional News Sources: Africa

Africa Confidential: one of the longest-established specialist publications on Africa, it has a reputation for in depth, breaking news coverage of significant political, economic and security developments across the continent. Harvard's subscription allows access from 1998 forward.

AllAfrica.com: collects and publishes in French and English daily news stories from over 130 African publishers (government, opposition-controlled, and independent), as well as text and audio from the BBC and RFI. AllAfrica.com also publishes pages on business, conflict resolution, environment, the arts, books, education, media and more. Harvard's subscription allows access to a searchable news archive from 1997.

Regional News Sources: Arab and Mideast

Mideastwire.com: a daily email newsletter of concise, translated briefs covering some of the key political, cultural, economic and opinion pieces appearing in the media of the 22 Arab countries, Iran and the Arab diaspora. Links to the full-text stories are included when available. Coverage is from 2005 forward.

Multidata Online: provides access to the content of selected newspapers and periodicals from the Arab world in Arabic, English, and French languages. Newspaper coverage is from 1998 forward.

Regional News Sources: East Asia

China Core Newspaper Database: full-text access to 673 Chinese national, regional and local newspapers or periodicals that appear at least on a weekly basis. The database includes current issues of journals as well as archives of back issues of journals, and articles are reproduced with original pagination. Special newspapers relate to legal issues in China, the environment, foreign policy, literary production, economics and finance, education and various areas of science and technology. Harvard's subscription allows access from 2000 forward.
Chosŏn ilbo: full-text access to the major Korean daily, 1920-present.

Kikuzo II Visual for Libraries: full text reproductions of Japan's daily newspaper Asahi shinbun　朝日新聞 from 1945 to the present; the weekly journals Aera アエラ from May 1988 (first issue) and Shukan Asahi 週刊朝日 from April 2000 to the present; and the latest edition of Chiezo 知恵蔵, the annual contemporary word dictionary.

KPM : 조선언론정보기지: full-text access to major daily and weekly newspapers published in North Korea (and some journals, videos, and photographs). Includes the English-language Pyongyang Times and the Japanese edition of Choson sinbo, as well as translations of some news articles into Japanese. Newspaper coverage is typically from 2005 forward.

Regional News Sources: Latin America

Latin America Newsstand: full-text access to 37 Spanish and Portuguese language newspapers from 11 Latin American countries and Puerto Rico. The database includes eight Brazilian newspapers, three Mexican newspapers, two newspapers each from Argentina, Costa Rica, Peru, and Uruguay, and single newspapers from Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. The remaining titles are regional magazines and wire services including Noticias Financieras financial newswire; InfoAmericas market analysis and regional economic trends; IPS-Inter Press Service news agency; El Reporte Delta weekly technology newsletter; and Business Wire Latin America. Key newspaper titles include El Universal, Mexico City's largest-selling newspaper; O Globo (Brazil); La Nación (Argentina); and El Mercurio (Chile). Three business titles, El Economista (Mexico), Valor Econômico (Brazil), and Portafolio (Colombia) are also important resources for researchers.

Regional News Sources: Russia, CIS, and Slavic countries

East View Universal Databases. Central Newspapers: provides comprehensive coverage of national news, current events, economic developments and cultural events in Russia. Official sources (Rossiiskaia gazeta, Krasnaia zvezda, ITAR-TASS), independent media and partisan publications are all represented in this database, thus offering a wide array of opinions and perspectives. Several English-language newspapers, including the Moscow Times (widely read by the international community in the Russian capital), constitute an important part of the database.

East View Universal Databases. Regional Newspapers: provides access to newspapers from all seven Federal Districts of the Russian Federation and includes coverage of local issues in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Some titles are drawn from the Northern Caucasus (Groznenskii rabochii from Chechnya, Severnaia Osetiia from Northern Osetiia-Alania, etc.), oil and gas rich Western Siberia (Tiumenskie izvestiia, etc.), and the investment-friendly Volga region (Nizhegorodskie novosti from Nizhnii Novgorod and Samarskie izvestiia from Samara), among many others. The newspapers included have the largest circulations in their regions and are considered authoritative. Coverage typically begins around 2000.

East View Universal Databases. Russian/NIS Newswires: includes several outstanding sources to follow the day-to-day developments in Russia and CIS. The Moscow bureau of the Federal News Service (Washington, D.C.) produces the daily Kremlin package, consisting of the full-text transcripts of top speeches, statements, press conferences, newspaper articles and television reports of the day. ITAR-TASS delivers a detailed account of events in Russia and worldwide. The Moscow information agency, Oreandam, specializes in economic news. The daily newswire AP-Blitz is produced by the Tajikistan-based information powerhouse Asia-Plus, and covers developments in this Central Asian region.

Specialized News Databases:

Alt-Press Watch: a full text database of the newspapers, magazines, and journals of the alternative and independent press. It serves a broad spectrum of subject areas including the arts, media and popular culture, business and labor studies, education, environmental studies and ecology, global studies, history, journalism, literary and critical studies, political science, government and public policy. Coverage begins about 1995.

Ethnic News Watch: provides full-text access to more than 300 newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press. Coverage begins about 1990 for most title.

Gender Watch: a full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas. Approximately 175 titles are included. Coverage is from 1974 forward.

News-monitoring services (English language)

World News Connection (WNC): a database of translated and English-language news and information that is particularly effective in its inclusion of local media. Compiled from thousands of non-U.S. media sources, the information in WNC covers significant socioeconomic, political, scientific, technical, and environmental issues and events. WNC comes to us from the Open Source Center (OSC), a U.S. government agency whose domestic and overseas bureaus monitor foreign media. The information is obtained from both full text and summaries of newspaper articles, websites, conference proceedings, television and radio broadcasts, periodicals, and non-classified technical reports. New information is entered into WNC hourly and generally, information is available within 24-72 hours from the time of original publication or broadcast. Coverage starts c.1996.

FBIS Daily Reports (Foreign Broadcast Information Service):the precursor to WNC, FBIS covers the period from c.1947-1996.

Immigration Research Guide

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E-Resources: News and Public Opinion

Chosŏn ilbo: full-text access to the major Korean daily, 1920-present.