There is a very useful LibGuide devoted to identifying the specific types and sources of the news you are accessing: Evaluating News.
Primary sources...it seems like almost every professor at one time or another wants students to use them, but have you ever wondered why? And just what *is* a primary source, anyway? This LibGuide has been designed not only to answer those questions, but also to provide you with some links to primary source material that will help you learn just how to use these unique items, and illustrate the wide variety of items available to scholars.
Why use primary sources in the first place? Primary sources have the unique distinction of being "windows into the past", providing first-hand accounts of events that happened in history. They provide an unfiltered look at the political, scientific, artistic, and societal achievements of the time, and also give context to the attitudes and thoughts of the people who lived through these events. Working with these documents and artifacts can give a student or researcher the sense of actually "being there", something that second-hand or secondary sources just can't provide, and can give students a broader sense of the continuum of history and how they fit within it. Primary sources can:
Source: Retrieved from the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/whyuse.html
