ABSTRACT
Among the inevitable first questions asked of all journalists by outsiders is ‘How do you get your news?’ Reporters do not spend their time simply patrolling the streets on the off chance of witnessing something interesting; neither is sole reliance on information from members of the general public a consistent way of filling anything other than a limited agenda. For those working in television the answer to the question is by no means a simple one, as so much depends on the financial and technical resources each news service is able to put into news-gathering, which is a complex and intricate operation in its own right. The small and poor, with little of their own to call on, may well have to be satisfied with second-hand material passed on by the sister radio services often run in parallel under the same roof, or the international television news agencies. The large, prestigious independents, with fat budgets, are able to bargain for exclusivity and/or make mutually beneficial deals to share coverage with like-minded non-competitors.
