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LIT115 Research Skills Guide: News & Media

Academic Literacies

Media Databases

In addition to eBooks and journal articles, the Library holds databases that focus on both newspaper and television news. You will need to find news items (articles, broadcasts or transcripts) for your assessment, and while you can often find these using Google or investigating a media organisation's website, you can also use the news databases available via the Library.

Below are some direct links to these databases. 

How to search other media databases

Credibility vs Fake News

It's very important to choose credible news items, especially as the sources you choose now will affect the marks you receive for your assessment. But it can sometimes be difficult to tell whether a news article is reliable or "fake news" - how can you tell?

In general, items you get from a Library database should be reliable, as the Library only subscribes on the basis that these databases will contain resources of an acceptable academic quality.

However, you can still look for news out there on the Internet; you just have to be a bit more careful. There are some key questions you can ask yourself, to make sure your item is a good resource to use: 

  • Is this item from a reputable source? Does it come from a credible news institution?
  • Is the author an experienced and qualified journalist or expert?

You can refer to the Evaluate page in this guide for more evaluation questions. Victoria University also has an interesting page about Who to believe? 

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