Abstract: An expert system apparatus employs a rule base and a knowledge base to perform media searching. The rule base is specified by means of a series of selected keywords and phrases which are entered in by a user. The phrases are further selected in conjunction with a General Information display enabling the user to select various phrases concerning a series of newspaper articles or media articles which are placed in the knowledge base of the system. By selecting topics such as article type, individual age level, focus of the article and topics of the article a user can then develop a rule base to enable the inference engine implemented by a computer to search the knowledge base and select those articles which are associated with the particular phrases which are indicated and selected by the user. Each phrase or keyword detected will cause tag words to be provided to further provide categories for the processed article.