A great resource for writers of books and screenplays

Even if newspapers are in decline, they are still a great source of information. One of the best ways to tap into that is via www.thepaperboy.com. It features 6351 online newspapers--yes, very dangerous in terms of the potential for time lost to browsing!

What's cool about this as a research tool is that if you are writing something set in a particular town or city you can read the local paper to pick up details.
 
I'm just starting to write something based in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley. I went to university there, but that was quite a while ago and I don't get back there very often.

Via ThePaperboy I can read the online version of the Palo Alto Weekly and get lots of local color. For instance, the issue I'm looking at reports that ten binge-drinking teens were cited for intoxication at Peers Park. One of my characters is the teen-age son of my protagonist, so that setting might come in handy at some stage. It also has stories about property values, details of the train service that goes into San Francisco, and several videos about local events.
 
If your setting is foreign, you have the option of having Google translate the newspaper into English (or other languages). Admittedly, the translation is a bit rough. One of the stories in the Berliner Morgenpost starts, "The Cabinet approves the Budget Support and keeps it in spite of the economic recovery of his austerity firmly." But you probably can get the gist of most of the articles.

Between this and Google Earth, you can get a lot of information for the setting of your stories, novels, or screenplays.