Section 5.2. Online Newspapers | iPhone: The Missing Manual, 4th Edition

5.2. Online Newspapers

The world's major print newspapers have also launched online editions that you can browse for free. Many ask you to fill out a free registration form so the site can harvest a little demographic data for its advertisers. Other newspapers try to make a few bucks by charging for online articles, either by monthly subscription or per article. For example, a number of newspapers let you read breaking news for free, but make you pay for archived articles more than, say, a week old.

Tip: News sites like Google and Yahoo News frequently link to articles on newspaper sites. If you hit a for-pay site, use your Back button and try another link. You can usually find the same article for free from another paper's site.

5.2.1. NYTimes.com

The venerable New York Times once nicknamed The Old Gray Ladyhit the Internet in 1996 with a burst of color . Still residing at www.nytimes.com , it's expanded in all sorts of directions, including podcasts, video and audio clips, and multimedia slideshows.

The Times is known for its deep international reporting, but its coverage of the cultural issues that are centered in New York City ( mainly theater, opera, dance , art, and books), is also vast and wide. The online edition often includes many features not found in the print edition, like audio interviews between reporter and subject.

A special upper tier of the site called TimesSelect, which requires a $50 annual paid subscription (or free if you get home delivery of the actual paper), contains some members -only material. Certain columnists, for example, appear only in TimesSelect, and searching the Times 's archives going back decades is free. But most of what's in the paper version of the New York Times is free on the Web for a week after publication.

Unlike the paper version, which only comes out once a day, the Web edition of the Times is updated constantly throughout the dayevery 10 minutes or soand you can sign up for daily email alerts and updates. Readers can participate in discussion forums, send messages to reporters, and email links or text from stories to friends .

5.2.2. WSJ.com

De facto required reading in the business or financial world, The Wall Street Journal lives on the Web at www.wsj.com . The WSJ Web site is just as brisk and informative as the print edition, with a meaty diet of corporate news, market coverage, and technology forecasts. Unfortunately for those on a budget, you need a subscription to read even today's articles. (If you don't get the print version dumped on your doorstep, you can get a Web-only subscription for about $10 a month.)

On the other hand, you can browse a handful of free articles each day on the WSJ.com home page. A quick glance at the Journal 's headlines should clue you in to what's going on. You can always toddle off to a free news site for further reading.

5.2.3. Your Local Paper

Thousands of local newpapers are on the Web, and they're often the best place to look for news about your own community. If you already subscribe to your hometown paper, check its front or editorial page for its Web address.

If you don't subscribe or want to read your local news from far away, several sites list most daily, weekly, campus, and alternative newspapers around the country. Try looking up your favorite paper at News Voyager (www.newspaperlinks.com), Online Newspapers (www.onlinenewspapers.com), or the Newspapers section on the American Journalism Review's Web site at www.ajr.org.

Tip: If you don't like the Webified version of a newspaper and wish you could read the print edition without waiting three days for it to arrive , check out www.newsstand.com . The company sells subscriptions to electronic editions of many major publications . These PDF files you download to your computer are exact copies of how the paper or magazine appeared in printads and all. And you don't get showered with perfume strips and subscription card inserts .