You search Google News with the same set of tools described in Chapter 2 for searching the Web. Keywords go in the keyword box. (Click the Search News button or press Enter to begin the search.) Google attempts to streamline your results by filtering similar articles and presenting the top-ranked hits for your keywords.
Tracking a story over time
Using the related stories feature, you can track the evolution of a current event. Here’s how:
On the Google News front page, click the related story link after any headline.
On the next page, click the Sort by Date link.
After the page reloads, scroll to the bottom and click the last result page listed.
On the last page, view the oldest headlines related to the story.
Move forward in time by clicking the Previous link at the bottom of each page.
Submitting a news source
If 4,500 news sources just aren’t enough, or if your favorite offbeat publication never seems to be represented, you can suggest a news source to Google. The submission method is informal. Just send your suggestion by e-mail to this address:
Figure 3-9 illustrates a News search results page. Note that at the bottom of the page, Google offers to repeat the search without filtering.
Figure 3-9: Search results in Google News.
Warning
Although Google News searching is nearly identical to Web searching in its use of operators, note that the site operator doesn’t work correctly as of this writing. Don’t beat your head against that wall. There is no way to force Google to return news stories from a particular site or top-level domain. (See Chapter 2.)
Tip
A final word about Google News. If the default U.S. version doesn’t pertain to your geography or nationality, try one of the five other national editions linked at the bottom of the front page. More country-specific versions are in development.
