SOURCES OF TV NEWS:Reporters, Correspondents, Monitoring, News Agency

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TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

LESSON 25

SOURCES OF TV NEWS

There are many source, basis, supplier, informant, spokesperson and origins of a television news story.

News sources are the ways and means through which a TV channel gets news. Here are some important

sources of newsgathering.

Reporters

Correspondents

Monitoring

Press releases from public sector organizations

Press note from the district management

Handout from DGPR and PID

Directorate General of Public Relations and Press Information Department

Media contacts

Opinion leaders/Politicians

Celebrities/ Players/ media icons

Press conferences

Media briefings

Important function, ceremony, workshop, seminar or symposium

Hospitals/social institutes

Police station/fire brigade

Jails/ Courts

District offices

Educational institutions

Chambers of commerce and industry

Banks State, Scheduled, Agriculture and commercial

News agencies

Corporate sector

Public gatherings

Web sources

News papers

Reporters

The biggest source of news for any station is its reporting staff. The reporters live in the community to

which they are telecasting through everyday contact with people in the area, from there observations as

they move in the society and from their informers they get news for their organization. So the chief

assignment of the reporter is to get news for the channel he or she is attached with.

Correspondents

They are the part time journalists who work for the newspaper and are paid through lineage of the story.

Monitoring

Monitoring officers listen to the transmissions in different languages, translate them into English and

make a report of it. Monitors normally work in three shifts.

For good monitoring a monitor must be proficient in the language he is monitoring. Senior monitors

scrutinize the monitoring reports and finally the news items to be made a part of news bulletin are sent

to the news editors.

TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

Press Release

A news release or press release or press statement is a written or recorded communication, directed at

members of the news media, for the purpose of announcing something, claimed as having news value.

Sometimes news releases are sent for the purpose of announcing news conferences. Typically, it is

mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to the assignment editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television

stations, and/or television networks.

Press Conference

A news conference or press conference is a media event in which newsmaker (person who holds press

conference) invites journalists to hear him speak and most often, ask questions. In a news conference,

one or more speakers may make a statement, which may be followed by questions from reporters.

Sometimes only questioning occurs; sometimes there is a statement with no questions permitted.

A media event at which no statements are made, and no questions allowed, is called a photo

opportunity. A government may wish to open their proceedings for the media to witness events, such as

the passing of a piece of legislation from the government in parliament to the senate, via media

availability.

News Agency

A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to organizations in

the newspapers, magazines, and radio and television channels. They are also known as wire services or

news services. News agencies generally prepare hard news stories that can be used by other news

organizations with little or no modification. They provide these articles in bulk, electronically through

wire services, today, they frequently use Internet.

National News Agencies:

Associated Press of Pakistan (APP)

Pakistan Press Association (PPA) /

Pakistan Press International (PPI)

United Press of Pakistan (UPP)

Independent News Pakistan (INP)

News Network International (NNI)

Kashmir Press International (KPI)/

SANA (South Asian News Agency)

Online News International (ONI)

International News Agencies:

Reuters (UK)

Agence France Presse (AFP)

Associated press (AP)

ANSA (ITALY)

Australian Associated Press

Canadian Press

China News Service

New China News Agency (NCNA)

Iran News Agency (IRNA)

News Sources

Broadcast news comes from:

The local reporter's primary sources

News services such as the Associated Press

Media outlets, such as newspapers, radio and TV stations

Press releases provided by corporations, agencies, and special interest groups

TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

The world's largest newsgathering association, the Associated Press (AP), operates bureaus in 120 U.S.

cities and in more than 130 foreign countries, reaching one-third of the world's population. In addition

to the AP, there are also a number of smaller wire services, including those operated by large

newspapers.

Internet Research

With billions of pages of information available, reporters now rely heavily on reputable Internet sources

in researching stories. They also consult newspaper archives, or stories that were previously published

in newspapers.

And then, as we've noted, there are the Internet blogs. The writers of reputable blogs have become a

significant social and political force in our society. Many of these writers are featured on news and

interview programs. As of late people working for the major news organizations have started personal

blogs to include information and commentary not featured in the mainstream media.

Computerized Newsrooms

Today, broadcast stations have computerized newsrooms and the steady stream of news from these

services is electronically written onto a computer hard disk. Using a computer terminal a news editor

can quickly scroll through an index of stories that have been electronically stored.

Some news editing programs, such as the one illustrated below, allow you to bring up wire stores from

the newsroom computer (shown on the left) and rewrite it, or copy segments directly into the news

script you are writing (shown on the right).

Computer programs in the newsroom programs are basic to

Storing a steady stream of news copy from wire services.

Providing key word search capabilities for wire copy, Internet sources, and archived stories.

Facilitating the writing of stories (note illustration above).

Calling up still store pages of graphics.

Creating and calling up CG (character generator) pages of text.

Programming the sequence of stories, video, and graphics (i.e., the complete newscast) on video

servers.

Providing teleprompter outputs.

Instantly rearranging news stories and recalculating times to accommodate last minute changes -

even while the newscast is on the air.

Some newsroom systems can be programmed to switch video and audio sources to correspond to

programmed cues in the teleprompter text.

Television stations affiliated with a network and O-and-O stations (those owned and operated by a

network) receive daily afternoon and evening satellite news feeds provided by network reporters and

affiliated TV stations. Since most of these stories are not used on the network's nightly news, they make

good regional, national, and international segments for local newscasts.

Independent stations

(Those not affiliated with a network) have television news services they can subscribe to -- the largest

being the Cable News Network (CNN).

Whatever the source, the news feeds are recorded for review by the local TV news producer or editor.

Stories selected for broadcast are normally saved to a video server or assembled on videotapes and

"rolled into" the local news as needed.

Regional, national, or even international stories can often be developed from a local perspective.

As examples, a major event that takes place in a foreign country can elicit reactions from local people of

the same nationality; a crime wave in an adjoining county may cause local people to react; or a shakeup

in a New York company may impact employees or related businesses in the station's area.

TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

Balance between local, regional, national, and international stories must be considered. Plus, you need

to consider the important element of visual variety, which in this case involves a balance between ENG

segments and stories that are simply read on-camera with supporting graphics.

Although the anchor point for most newscasts is a TV station studio, TV audiences like the visual

variety and authenticity associated with news segments done outside the studio. Newscasts are now

routinely being anchored from foreign countries that dominate the night's news coverage.

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