By Jeff Vedders
NewsLink is a free directory of media links including newspapers, television, radio and magazines. The address is http://newslink.org. We’ve found the newspaper links to be quite useful in our research. NewsLink organizes its newspaper links by national, state, or major metro papers, by dailies and non-dailies, and by newspaper type.
The newspaper links are most helpful when researching small and/or private companies. Some companies may not issue press releases, or they may be too small to be picked up by industry-specific publications, but often the local media will publish information about these companies. Even if there are no articles published, we’ve found that a wealth of information can be gathered by directly contacting someone at the newspaper. NewsLink also lists the major business journals. These are equally valuable in gathering information about companies or learning about local business trends.
The downside is that NewsLink is just a starting point. You cannot search multiple papers at the same time. Also, there is no consistency in fee structures. Some papers offer information for free while others charge a fee for each article. Still others offer searchable archival information while others do not have this capability. However it is still a quick and easy way to track down local newspapers.