I think you need to breakout the expression. I would think it would be "National" not (national news)~3.

Thanks!
I think it can also be
"National" and live not (national news)~3

Can we use multiple words for NEAR operator.
Ex: (since I was little)~5

No, you can only do 2 word parings.

How would the query with multiple words work?
I see its picking the full "since I was little" from my response.

Well what exactly are you trying to do? Are you trying to find all instances where any of those words are within 5 words of each other (i.e since and I & since and was & since and little, etc.)

You could write those all out as 2 word pairs, but you really aren't going to get anything meaningful from your data.

So I am looking for instances near 5 words between "since I am" and "little"

I would write that like (since little)~5 and "since I am"

Maybe that doesn't help you.