Finding News Sources You Can Trust

The news is rapidly changing and it can be hard to find sources that are both reliable and comprehensive. Additionally, fake news can run rampant on social media or unreliable media sites.

Government, health, science, and finance are especially fragile topics right now, so it is important to have resources you can rely on. San Mateo County Libraries’ online resources can help mitigate this rush of information.

New York Times Digital Subscription

San Mateo County Libraries patrons can get access to the full edition of The New York Times without a subscription. You can find all regular newspaper content, photography, and videos dating back from 1851 to present. You’ll also have access to Mandarin and Spanish versions.

Like to only read the Style section or the Opinions? You can personalize your access through email newsletters, mobile apps (App Store, opens a new window | Google Play, opens a new window ), and customizable news feeds and recommendations. The New York Times also offers the California Today newsletter, which covers the news and stories that matter to Californians.

San Francisco Chronicle Online

Library users now have access to the full image version of the San Francisco Chronicle online. All you need is your library card to get access to issues dating back 30 years of the San Francisco Chronicle.

You can search or browse a digital replica of the San Francisco Chronicle print edition online, with full-color layouts of all news articles, graphics, advertisements, classifieds, weather reports, box scores, puzzles, cartoons, and more. These digital editions are available as soon as the print editions are.

The San Francisco Chronicle is made available to the library through NewsBank, a newspaper database. You can find articles from other local newspapers including the San Mateo Daily Journal, Pacifica Tribune, Half Moon Bay Review, and The Mercury News. For help getting started with Newsbank, visit our tutorial, opens a new window.

Newspaper and Magazine Databases

In addition to our local papers, Newsbank provides access to current and archived information from thousands of newspaper titles, as well as newswires, web editions, blogs, videos, government documents, and more. You can search across the resources or browse groups of articles based on hot topics in the news. For example, the COVID-19 page featured at the top of the page as an announcement pulls articles and videos from news sources such as Slate, Mother Jones, and the San Mateo Daily Journal.

Newspaper Source Plus, available through our EBSCO research databases, lets you search for full-text articles from over 1,200 newspapers, newswires, and news magazines.

For news magazines, try RBDigital (The New Yorker, Mother Jones, The Week) or Flipster (The Atlantic, Time). If you need help getting started, try the tutorials for both RBDigital, opens a new window and Flipster, opens a new window.

Where do you get your news? Let us know in the comments.