LexisNexis ... free!

Jonathan Dube points out at Poynter that there are free sections of the expansive (and expensive) LexisNexis available.

Its U.S. Politics & World News section is available, comprising articles from 4,000 foreign and international news sources. There are sections broken down by regions and topics. You can also find transcripts for TV news shows and press briefings from the White House and the military. Right now, there's a huge area devoted to Katrina news.

Why would the company give away something so many of us covet? Dube explains:

LexisNexis first started offering a package of free news headlines after the Sept. 11 attacks. The company did it again at the beginning of the Iraq War and again for the 2004 presidential election. After that, the company generously decided to allow it to live on indefinitely, and it morphed into the site you see today.

So try it out tonight and see how much use you can get out of it. I could see this becoming a daily stop for those of us without free access.