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

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TV News Reporting and Production ­ MCM 516
VU
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.
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Reporters
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Correspondents
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Monitoring
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Press releases from public sector organizations
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Press note from the district management
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Handout from DGPR and PID
Directorate General of Public Relations and Press Information Department
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Media contacts
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Opinion leaders/Politicians
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Celebrities/ Players/ media icons
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Press conferences
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Media briefings
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Important function, ceremony, workshop, seminar or symposium
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Hospitals/social institutes
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Police station/fire brigade
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Jails/ Courts
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District offices
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Educational institutions
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Chambers of commerce and industry
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Banks State, Scheduled, Agriculture and commercial
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News agencies
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Corporate sector
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Public gatherings
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Web sources
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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.
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TV News Reporting and Production ­ MCM 516
VU
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:
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The local reporter's primary sources
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News services such as the Associated Press
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Media outlets, such as newspapers, radio and TV stations
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Press releases provided by corporations, agencies, and special interest groups
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TV News Reporting and Production ­ MCM 516
VU
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 ­
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Storing a steady stream of news copy from wire services.
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Providing key word search capabilities for wire copy, Internet sources, and archived stories.
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Facilitating the writing of stories (note illustration above).
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Calling up still store pages of graphics.
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Creating and calling up CG (character generator) pages of text.
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Programming the sequence of stories, video, and graphics (i.e., the complete newscast) on video
servers.
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Providing teleprompter outputs.
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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.
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TV News Reporting and Production ­ MCM 516
VU
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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Table of Contents:
  1. CREATIVITY AND IDEA GENERATION FOR TELEVISION:Video Procedures
  2. PRE-REQUISITES OF A CREATIVE PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:SET-UP RESPONSIBILITIES
  3. REFINING AN IDEA FOR PRODUCTION:Drama, Magazine Shows, Documentary
  4. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT:Variable. Pure and applied research
  5. RESEARCH AND REVIEWS:Research Procedure, Review of available literature
  6. SCRIPT WRITING:Elements of a successful story, Characters, Effects
  7. PRE-PRODUCTION PHASE:Indoor production, Outdoor production, Essentials of PBE
  8. SELECTION OF REQUIRED CONTENT AND TALENT:Camera rehearsal
  9. PROGRAMME PLANNING:Checklist, Electronic Field Production (EFP)
  10. PRODUCTION PHASE:Floor plan, Traditional set, Representational set, Design elements
  11. CAMERA WORK:Movement of lens of camera, Types of shots
  12. LIGHT AND AUDIO:Importance of sound in TV, Use of microphone, Loudness
  13. DAY OF RECORDING/PRODUCTION:Rehearsals,Point to ponder
  14. LINEAR EDITING AND NLE:Episode, Scene, Editing, Production Switcher
  15. MIXING AND USES OF EFFECTS:Live Sound Effects, ARROW STRIKING
  16. SELECTION OF THE NEWS:Elements of news, Timeliness, proximity
  17. WRITING OF THE NEWS:The inverted pyramid, Lead, Credit line
  18. EDITING OF THE NEWS:Characteristics of good news:Process of editing a news
  19. COMPILATION OF NEWS BULLETIN:Hard news, Soft news, Investigative report
  20. PRESENTATION OF NEWS BULLETIN
  21. MAKING SPECIAL BULLETINS:Agriculture, Show biz, Fashion, Drama
  22. TECHNICAL CODES, TERMINOLOGY, AND PRODUCTION GRAMMAR
  23. TYPES OF TV PRODUCTION:Magazine Shows, Specific audience programming
  24. DRAMA AND DOCUMENTARY:Documentary film, Defining documentary
  25. SOURCES OF TV NEWS:Reporters, Correspondents, Monitoring, News Agency
  26. FUNCTIONS OF A REPORTER
  27. BEATS OF REPORTING:City reporter, Social reporters, Show-biz reporter
  28. STRUCTURE OF NEWS DEPARTMENT:Beat Reporters, Online media
  29. ELECTRONIC FIELD PRODUCTION:Sports, Electronic news gathering
  30. LIVE TRANSMISSIONS:Studio floor, Switcher, Master control room, Camera control units
  31. QUALITIES OF A NEWS PRODUCER:Determination, Awareness, Sharp an active
  32. DUTIES OF A NEWS PRODUCER
  33. ASSIGNMENT/NEWS EDITOR:Accuracy, Fairness and Reliability, Conflict
  34. SHOOTING A NEWS FILM:The Influence of telecast News
  35. PREPARATION OF SPECIAL REPORTS:Uncovering Truth, Reportage
  36. INTERVIEWS, VOX POPS AND PUBLIC OPINIONS:INTERVIEW, Information
  37. BACK GROUND VOICE AND VOICE OVER:Natural or Raw Sound, Sound Effects
  38. SPOKEN WORDS AND RELEVANT VISUALS:Digital Audio, Quantizing Error
  39. TALK SHOWS, FORUMS AND DISCUSSION PROGRAMMES
  40. FUNCTIONS OF VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS OF A TV SET UP
  41. PROGRAMMES DEPARTMENT:Program content, Television series by genre
  42. NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS THE PROGRAMMING & SCHEDULING
  43. COORDINATION AMONG DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF TELEVISION
  44. COORDINATION AMONG DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF TELEVISION - 2 SUB-DEPARTMENTS AND SMALL SECTIONS
  45. COORDINATION AMONG DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF TELEVISION 3