We do conduct studies on Western Europe and find newspapers useful. They come form stable nations and are well-written, widely available, are often indexed on Nexis and other sources, and Library of Congress and major libraries tend to acquire most of them and have long runs for historical purposes. Countries such as North Korea, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Cuba are of high interest. Nations beleaguered with economic problems and natural disasters to which the United States and other nations are responding with humanitarian assistance also are of high interest. It is important to study these countries through their own media and not the filter of United States and West European reporters.
Newspapers are of critical importance to area studies for most of the same reasons just stated.
We use newspapers in conjunction with statistical yearbooks and other official annual publications and reports so as to give both the immediate and larger pictures. This data is correlated with scholarly and academic works. Because of the nature of my division's work, we have to continue to collect universally. Newspaper coverage at the national level is critical and, I believe, so is coverage from major cities and regions of major countries where one or two national dailies can not do justice to our research needs. If anything, our analysts would like to be seeing more local press not currently received at the Library of Congress.