I can’t imagine how it does it, but the Internet Archive says it has collected most everything that’s every been published on the Internet — 150 billion web pages! Plus it has recorded all the TV news shows produced since 2009, as well as digitized books, 200,000 free digital audio recordings, and much more. It claims to have three times the data that the Library of Congress keeps.
It’s all searchable. Best part about it — it’s all free.
It claims two million visitors per day so seems to me any communications professional should know this site!
When you have a few minutes go check it out. Here are the top three ways I think it can be helpful for journalists:
- background yourself on an event or topic in the past
- fact check what a politician really said
- use its “Wayback Machine” to find content on now-defunct website.
If you’ve used the Internet Archive for research in a story, please let @ReadyReporter know how, in the comment box below.