Exploring the validity of electronic newspaper databases

Do electronic newspaper databases contain all of the stories that appear in the print edition? And does this depend on the database used? To explore these questions, we collected print copies of newspapers from cities across the USA and Canada. We compared coverage of two topics in these newspapers with the coverage obtained from keyword searches in three electronic newspaper databases. We conclude that the stories obtained through electronic searches are consistent across databases but can vary from the print source. Importantly, national and international coverage is more likely to be missing than local or statewide/provincial coverage.