Online Newsgathering: Research and Reporting for Journalism

5

Beyond Google: Finding Trustworthy Information Online

If you were searching for a needle in a haystack, where would you start and what tools would you use?

For a basic search you might use your eyes and perhaps the sense of touch—rummaging through the hay until you either saw the needle, or it pricked a finger. If you were extremely lucky and had an idea of where in the haystack the needle had been lost, you might find it relatively quickly, perhaps in a few minutes, or maybe hours. But if you had no idea where it was lost, the search could take days, months, or maybe never end.

But what if you had a powerful magnet, a metal detector, and a portable X-ray machine? The search would be more complex but your chance of success would improve dramatically. ...