If you research a story or publication, you need relevant coverage with enough source and date context to assess it. Search the News Index by a description of the subject or by words in the title and body. The collection draws from news data and more than four million feeds, and includes roughly two million indexed pages, podcast items and videos in a typical 30-day window across the current and previous calendar month.
The coverage window
Two monthly tables are kept, so the reach is this month and last month. That makes it a current-coverage index rather than an archive.
It answers what is being published in a market now. It will not answer what a publication wrote about you two years ago, so save the individual results you need while they are still in range. Bulk export of the index itself is not included.
Choose a meaning search or a word query
Use Similarity text when different wording can describe the subject. For a specific company name or phrase, use Title query or Body query. The form uses Similarity text only when the word-query boxes are empty.
The choice follows from what you are looking for. A brand name is exact, so word queries suit it. A market is not: writers use their own vocabulary, and an article about the problem you solve may never name your category.
Word queries can require terms or quoted phrases, and title and body conditions combine with AND or OR. Start with the condition that identifies the material, then narrow if the results are too broad.
Writing a similarity query that works
Describe the situation the way somebody writing about it would, rather than the way you name it internally.
Weak: hospitality workforce management. That is a category label and it finds category-label articles.
Better: restaurants struggling to fill shifts at short notice and the effect on service quality. That describes what an article about it would contain.
Longer and more specific works better here, which is the opposite of the habit keyword search teaches.
Control dates and repeated coverage
Sort by publication date or indexed date according to the question. Publication date is when the source says the item appeared; indexed date is when it entered the collection. They are frequently far apart, so a result appearing today is not evidence that it was published today.
Near-duplicate grouping helps when several sites repeat the same release. Inspect grouped copies before counting independent coverage. One press release repeated by twelve outlets is one story. Counting it as twelve overstates coverage in a client report.
Domain and host PageRank filters provide additional ways to narrow the source list.
Verify at the source
Open the original item before using a claim in your own writing. An indexed transcript or extracted page text may omit material available at the source, and a podcast transcript in particular can lose the qualification attached to a statement.
What to do with what you find
Three things convert reading into work. Note the publications that recur, because one covering your subject repeatedly is a placement prospect. Note the questions being raised, because a problem described by someone outside your company is a content brief with evidence attached. Note who is quoted, because those are the people journalists return to.
During story research, retain the original source and publication date so the evidence can support a specific contribution.
See searching coverage by meaning, a weekly research routine, or what the indexes contain.