Spend ten minutes searching for earlier coverage, then name what your piece adds.
A five-step, ten-minute search for earlier coverage of a story, and a four-addition rule for deciding whether your version still gives readers something new.
The story that had already run
Here's a hypothetical week. A solo publisher finds something on a Tuesday night: a filing, a quiet policy change, a number that doesn't add up. They draft it Wednesday and send it Thursday. On Friday a reader replies with three links to earlier coverage, the oldest from last spring.
The facts held up. The piece still told that reader nothing new, and it presented old reporting as if it were fresh.
A short search before the draft would have caught it. It would also have shown whether the publisher still had something to add.
The prior-coverage gate
The first decision on a story is whether it has already been covered. It comes before the angle and before the headline. We call it the prior-coverage gate.
Newsrooms spread this check across people: an assignment editor, colleagues who remember what ran last quarter, archive staff at larger outlets. A one-person publication has to run it alone, and a single general search is a weak substitute. General results reward whatever ranks, so a strong piece from a trade outlet your readers trust can sit well below a generic one.
Your own voice is a reason for you to write, and it won't clear the gate on its own. For a reader who already saw the original reporting, the same facts in a new voice read as a rerun. And finding earlier coverage doesn't kill a story by itself. Plenty of good follow-up work starts from something that ran once, briefly, without the document behind it.
So the gate needs two parts: a search that runs the same way every time, and a rule for what counts as an addition.
The ten-minute check, step by step
Run the five steps in order. Each one catches coverage the previous step can miss.
| Step | Time | What to run | What it catches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Date-limited search | 2 min | The main entity plus the specific subject. Limit by date first (Google supports after: and before: operators), then widen to all time | Recent coverage that ranks well |
| 2. Outlet search | 2 min | site: searches on the three or four outlets your readers trust, such as a trade publication, the local paper and a specialist newsletter | Trade coverage buried in general results |
| 3. Newsletter search | 2 min | Substack's web reader searches posts and publications across Substack; check the archive pages of independent newsletters on your beat | Coverage that lives in email-first publications |
| 4. Archived versions | 2 min | The Wayback Machine's Changes view compares two captures of a URL side by side. Run it on any prior article and on the source page your story depends on | Quiet edits, removed paragraphs and unannounced corrections |
| 5. Primary document | 2 min | Pull the filing, bill text, docket entry or award notice, then search news for its identifier. For SEC filings, EDGAR full-text search covers filings since 2001 | Whether earlier coverage cited the document at all |
Take a hypothetical. You write a weekly newsletter on regional defense contracting, and a contract modification for a shipyard on your beat catches your eye. Step one turns up two short wire items from last year on the original award. Step two finds a trade piece on the same program. Step three finds nothing. Step four shows the shipyard's program page lost a paragraph about delivery dates sometime in the past two months. Step five finds no prior article that cites the modification itself.
That's ten minutes, and the story is still alive, for a specific reason you can name. If summary tools or answer engines give you a quick overview of prior coverage, treat them as leads and open every citation yourself. For reading the award record, see our guide to defense contract awards.
The decision rule: name one addition
With the search done, the decision comes down to one question: what does this piece add? The answer has to be one of four things, stated in a sentence.
| Addition | It counts when | It doesn't count when |
|---|---|---|
| New fact | A number, quote or outcome that wasn't known when the story last ran | It's the same fact with fresh wording |
| New document | Evidence the earlier coverage didn't cite | The earlier piece linked it and you're summarizing it again |
| New audience | Your readers missed it because it ran somewhere they don't read, and you can say where | You're assuming nobody saw it |
| New timing | A deadline, vote, filing or ruling has changed the situation | Only the calendar has moved |
Name one and go ahead, crediting the earlier coverage by outlet and linking it. If you can't name one, drop the story or record it in a follow-up register with the event that would justify reopening it. A short piece that links the original and adds one fact gives readers more than a long one that ignores the original.
In the shipyard example, two additions hold: a new document (the modification) and a new fact (the removed delivery-date paragraph, which needs a call to the company before it goes in the piece).
Choosing the angle comes after the gate. For that step, see finding your angle on a crowded story and the two-sentence pitch.
Log every check in one line
Keep a running log. It takes less than a minute per story and it answers the reader who sends three links on Friday.
| Story | Date checked | Searches run | Earliest prior coverage found | Addition named | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shipyard contract modification (hypothetical) | Tuesday | Steps 1 to 5 | Wire item on the original award, last year | New document; new fact pending company response | Go, credit the wire and trade pieces |
The log also keeps your claims honest. If ten minutes of searching found nothing, write "we couldn't find earlier reporting on this," never "first" or "exclusive." A short search that finds nothing describes your search. It can't settle what exists across the whole field.
Over a few months the log shows patterns too. If most candidates die at step two, the outlets your readers trust are already covering your beat well, and the archive matrix can help you find the questions they leave open.
Where a checked briefing fits
Niche follows a field, checks coverage against independent sources and delivers the stories that held up, with links to the sources. Syndicated copies are merged and supporting sources stay attached, so for a story in your briefing you can see several outlets that carried it in one place.
That gives you a head start on step one. Steps two through five still need your own searches, and the addition is still yours to name before you write.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if a story has already been covered?
Run five searches in about ten minutes: a date-limited web search, site: searches on the outlets your readers trust, a newsletter search, a Wayback Machine comparison of the relevant pages, and a search for the primary document's identifier.
Should I still write a story if someone else already covered it?
Only if you can name one addition in a sentence: a new fact, a new document, a new audience or new timing. If you can, go ahead and credit the earlier coverage by outlet. If you can't, drop it or log it with the event that would justify reopening it.
Why use the Wayback Machine in a coverage check?
Its Changes view compares two archived captures of a URL side by side, so you can see whether a prior article or a source page was edited after publication. A removed paragraph or an unannounced correction can be a new fact worth reporting, after you ask the publisher about it.
If I find no earlier coverage, can I call my story the first?
No. A ten-minute search tells you what you found, and it can't show everything that exists. Write that you couldn't find earlier reporting, and keep words like first and exclusive out unless you've checked the whole field.