The Environment Envir. All is not lost, thanks to the many newspapers on the World Wide Web that keep online archives of past editions. If a wire story about something that happened in San Francisco piques your interest, for example, all you have to do is visit the Examiner's Web site and see the unabridged original coverage. If the subject of your search hails from suburban Maryland, stop by The Washington Post's Web site and search the archives for anything that's ever been written about the person or business you're researching.
Many newspapers offer free searches for the previous two weeks or so.
Quite a few papers charge a fee to pull up older articles. Here are a few good hunting grounds. This site from Virginia Commonwealth University's journalism school offers links to a number of major newspapers. It's a good starting point. Visitors here will find archives going back two weeks for both Post articles and Associated Press articles.