Discovering Biology in a Digital World blogs about her experiment with PubMed to find the best way to search for free articles. What returned the most results, she found, was using PubMed and limiting the articles to those with free full text. Her loyal readers track back with a plethora of comments on the ways they find free publications.
Somewhat related is another ScienceBlogs post by Carl Zimmer of The Loom, in which he asks for advice on what to bring to the table at a future "Science and Media Summit." Quite a few readers advised to increase open access, as science journalists who have access to the original research will write more informed pieces. Go figure!