How to Search and Share 350,000 TV News Broadcasts

Internet Archive just launched TV News Search & Borrow a searchable collection now contains 350,000 news programs collected over 3 years from national U.S. networks and stations in San Francisco and Washington D.C. User’s can specify search term, network and TV show. In the screenshot (above) I searched the term “47” on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report.”

Internet Archives states “”This service is designed to help engaged citizens better understand the issues and candidates in the 2012 U.S. elections by allowing them to search closed captioning transcripts to borrow relevant television news programs.  The archive is updated with new broadcasts 24 hours after they are aired. Older materials are also being added.”  Currently 21 networks are searchable (left). 

I searched for “Obama” on FOX 10 PM News (below), and found coverage of his convention speech. I could dig deeper into the broadcast to generate minute-by-minute clickable word clouds. (Click on a word and it lights up in each section of the broadcast summary). The user can create a URL to share the clip, but embedding is not available.

Stephen Colbert “Teachers are Destroying America”

A great clip from this week’s Colbert Report profiles Dawn Quarles, a Florida high school teacher, who faces voter fraud fines for registering her students to vote. Quarles, a teacher at Pace High School in the Panhandle, could receive a $1,000 fine for violating Florida’s new law which places strict limits on the voter registration process.

For more in this occasional series, see my post Jon Stewart “Teachers are Destroying America”