ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the importance of strong search skills for speed and depth in reporting, advanced search techniques for finding key authoritative information, finding experts online, sources on social media, and people on the ground: advanced search on Twitter. Newswires, press releases, the news diary and readers or listeners calling in once helped supply many of the leads that would eventually fill that day's bulletin or paper. There are two main technologies that are used for a personal news feed: email alerts, and RSS feeds. Search engines are problematic for journalists for a fundamental reason: they rank content based primarily on how many other pages link to it. Most of the time journalists are looking for information that has some sort of authority. It might be 'official' reports, statements or statistics made by government, health or police bodies; or it might be authoritative research done by an academic, or claims made by a charity.
