alsoreported helps you read the news when you hit a paywall, without breaking any rules. It does two things.
1. The finder
Paste a link to a news story. We look for the same story at outlets that are free to read, such as BBC News, NPR, CBC and ABC Australia, and show you their headlines with links to their own sites.
How matching works
- We read the link, not the article. Most news links contain the story's headline words and date, for example
/2026/11/05/bank-of-england-raises-rates. We use only those words. We never open, store or show the paywalled page. - Some links have no words in them. For those, we ask you to type the headline.
- We search news indexes. Our main source is the GDELT Project, a free index of news coverage worldwide. We keep only results from outlets that are free to read.
- We also keep a small headline list from sources whose terms allow it, such as The Conversation and official sources like central banks and government press offices. We keep the headline, the link and the time, nothing else, for 30 days.
- We compare words and names. Headlines from around the same date that share the story's distinctive words, especially names of people, places and companies, are shown as Same story. Weaker matches are labelled Related coverage.
- You can always search yourself. Each result page links to the search pages of free outlets, filled in with the story's words.
Matching works best for breaking news. Analysis, opinion and exclusive stories often have no free version, and we say so rather than guess.
2. The outlet guides
Each guide lists the legal ways to read one outlet, by country: public library access, school and employer access, student and teacher rates, intro offers, bundles and gift links. We check each route against the outlet's or library's own page where we can, mark how sure we are, and show the date we last checked. Offers change often, so always confirm the price on the outlet's site before paying.
What we don't do
We don't copy, summarise or rewrite anyone's articles, and we don't suggest technical tricks for getting around paywalls. Journalism costs money to make. Libraries, schools and fair offers are good ways to pay for it, and free outlets are good places to read it.
See our editorial policy, privacy notice, or contact us.