Yes, I almost always use search tools of some sort, even if only to narrow down the search to the last week, or month, or whatever.
That's not always terribly reliable, though - as it often leads to a series of search results which prove to be for articles that are years out of date, but which were contained in a publication whose latest edition was published much more recently - but which doesn't contain the article that I'm trying to find!
If I'm still struggling to find what I need, as a result of this sort of thing, then I'll set much more specific parameters in terms of dates, or keywords, or whatever.
I also use the specific country option quite often, if I want to be able to cut out information that applies to other countries quickly and easily.
I tend to use speech marks a lot when searching, too - to narrow down the results, and make them more specific, especially if I'm searching for someone by name.
