Journals tend to be very text oriented, without a lot of pictures or advertisements. Many magazine articles will not list authors. Most magazine articles will not include bibliographies or footnotes. Magazines have pictures and advertisements, both of which offer information to the investigative reader. Newspaper articles cover news, politics, local, national and world events, and weather in addition to providing the latest on sports, entertainment and political figures, and popular culture values and phenomena.
Newspapers serve wonderfully for retrospective research, as well.
Newspapers also provide evidence of geographical or political bias around historical or cultural events. Then too, newspapers tend to offer the general public their first taste of a research project that has been floating around the academic and professional journals for some time. Many newspaper articles, while not providing footnotes, will at least cite the source of their information within the text of the article. Evaluating Periodical Articles Evaluate periodical articles before you decide to use them in your research. As you might have thought by now, your reading of an article's bias may in turn be influenced by your own points of views and values.