Criteria
Chart

PURPOSE OF NEWS AND OPINION MAGAZINES

When writing a research paper on news, political, and social events, your library search will yield many citations from news and opinion magazines, the most popular ones being the weekly-produced Time, Newsweek, and U. S. News and World Report. These sources are appropriate to help you formulate an argument on your topic. At the bottom of this guide is a chart of news and opinion magazines, the editorial stance of each, the databases that index each, and a link to Randall Library's holdings.

News and opinion magazines evaluate news, social and political events. Published weekly or monthly, news and opinion magazines do not focus on reporting the news "objectively" but on discussing events from one (usually) editorial point-of-view, such as liberal, conservative, left, right, balanced, or middle-of-the-road.

An important part of searching your topic is the proper analysis of the periodical for editorial stance. If you discover that most of your reading represents only one point of view, your argument may be vulnerable to a position you have not considered. You may then want to expand your search to include periodicals from other editorial stances. The purpose for reading a wide range of periodical articles on your topic is to insure that you have logically argued, given any possible point of view.

CRITERION FOR EVALUATING NEWS AND OPINION MAGAZINES

• Evaluate news and opinion magazines, first by examining the actual publication.

• Editorial columns and letters to the editor, usually located in the front of each issue, often reveal the bias of the periodical.

• Advertisements, frequently sponsored by partisan companies, point to the persuasion of the magazine's intended audience.

• Other areas for examination are the irony and connotations of headlines and the style of photographs.

• Finally, look at a review of the magazine in Bill and Linda Sternberg Katz's Magazines for Libraries, located in the Ready Reference Collection, call number Z6941 .K2. Individual titles, located in the title index (back of the work), are assigned an entry number. Entries are arranged by broad categories, such as "News and Opinion." Each entry contains the title of the periodical, year it started, frequency of publication, periodical indexes that analyze it, and a review that, among other things, discusses the political stance of the publication.

The following chart is a list of news and opinion magazines available through Randall Library.  The title of the magazine contains a link to Randall Library's holdings.  The middle column identifies the editorial stance of the magazine, and the final column identifies databases that index the magazine, with the asterisk indicating full text.

TITLE	EDITORIAL STANCE	DATABASE/RANDALL HOLDINGS
America	Catholic (Liberal)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  Randall Library
American Enterprise	Eclectic	EBSCOHost (Business Source Premier) Randall Library
The American Spectator	Conservative	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  Lexis Nexis Randall Library
Business Week	Moderate	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  Lexis Nexis Randall Library
Commentary	Moderate (Jewish)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)   Randall Library
Common Cause Magazine	Liberal	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Lexis-Nexis  Randall Library
Commonweal	Catholic (liberal)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Randall Library
Contemporary Review	Liberal (English)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Randall Library
Current	Eclectic (reprints)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)
Dissent	Left	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Randall Library
The Economist	Supports free trade.	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Lexis-Nexis Academic Randall Library
Foreign Affairs	Centrist mostly	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Lexis-Nexis Academic Randall Library
Gallup Poll Monthly		Randall Library
The Harris Poll		Randall Library
Human Events	Conservative	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)
Monthly Review (electronic)	Left/Marxist	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)
Mother Jones	Left	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Lexis-Nexis Academic  Randall Library
The Nation	Liberal	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Randall Library
National Journal	Conservative	EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Randall Library
National Review	Conservative	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Lexis-Nexis  Randall Library
New Perspectives Quarterly	Eclectic	EbscoHost (EJS)  EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Randall Library
New Statesman	Left (British)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Randall Library
Newsweek	Moderate	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Lexis-Nexis  Randall Library
Progressive	Left	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier)  Randall Library
Public Interest	Conservative	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Randall Library
Public Opinion Quarterly	Eclectic	EbscoHost (EJS) JSTOR Randall Library
Reason	Left (Libertarian)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier) Randall Library
Social Policy	Left (?)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier) Randall Library
The Spectator	Conservative (British)	Lexis Nexis
Tikkun	Liberal (Jewish)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Randall Library
Time	Middle-of-Road	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  Randall Library
U. S. News & World Report	Conservative (slightly)	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Lexis-Nexis  Randall Library
U. S. A. Today (magazine)	Eclectic	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier) Randall Library
Washington Monthly	Liberal	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier) Randall Library
The Weekly Standard	Conservative	Lexis-Nexis Academic Randall Library
World Policy Journal	Moderate Left	EbscoHost (Academic Search Premier)  EbscoHost (MasterFILE Premier) Randall Library
Z Magazine		Randall Library

Last Update: February 9, 2007

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