Writing and Reporting for TV- Source of news Finding, gathering and developing the news sources, turning

visuals into news and establishing facts through a blend of audio and visual communication before a glued TV viewer is what TV news channels do for getting more and more people attracted to their news. How does this happen? What are the sources which provide such huge coverage of news to a TV News channel? Where from does all the news reach to TV studios even before we must be having any clue about it? Over the years from the beginning of the print and radio medium, the news gathering and distributing system has developed to a great extent in the entire world involving different ways and means to collect and distribute the news globally for further distribution by the vast network of news papers, radio and now TV and internet. The fallowing is the primary news source in a TV news channel: 1. The local reporters primary source 2. News services such as PTI, ANI. AP, etc. 3. Media outlet, such as newspapers, radio, TV stations. 4. Press releases provided by public and private corporations, agencies, special interest groups, political parties. There can be as many sources of collecting the news worthy information as you can imagine and get hold of. Truly for gathering news as a reporter you need to have nose for it. One truth about news coverage is that whenever you aim a camera at one person, you aim it away from all others. When you write one crime story, you effectively ignore the rest. And when a precious 20 second of air time is allocated for a single story item, you negate everything else farther down the agenda. Therefore essentially it is very important to develop a personal trait needed to effectively acquire news, be informed, be curious, and have a consistent desire to know what happens next. For this, you need to bookmark websites, keep all the phone and mobile numbers of the sources readily available to you, tag all the up coming events on your calendar. And keep your sense of judgment upbeat. News stations set the agenda of the community, promote certain events over the others, spotlight one crisis instead of the other, and play one news byte more frequently than the rest. These judgment calls are crucial as a news producer has to cover all the days news events in a very finite amount of time. Locating the source: Despite many news agencies pouring news into a TV Channel Newsroom, every news channel has a widespread army of news reporters, correspondents, stringers, who work at different news assignment beats, at local, national and international levels and send reports to the news channel. All these reporters have their own developed source of news gathering and for this they always try to build their contacts with very highly reliable and useful sources of information. Among the news sources some are available to all reporters, such as Public meetings, monitoring of other news resources such as Radio and TV, press conferences, news briefings, seminars and

other functions. But contacts are sources of exclusive information for the reporter. They may be in the government, public or private sector business or just anywhere. Sometimes a valuable tip off may come from an ordinary person such as the driver of a ministers personal car. Some of the contacts may like to be quoted but others may not, in case of a critical story the source may not like to be quoted. In that case, the story can be attributed to source without naming the same but it remains the responsibility of the reporter to ensure the truthfulness of the report. In such situation the reporter should keep solid evidence of any document or other video or audio available. In the process of putting together the entire days chronicles and shaping these in news there are occasions when the truth revealed by a journalist may not be liked by certain politician, or a businessperson or even by those who are doing some activity against the society, in this case journalist face opposition, reprimand and even the hostility can grow to the extent when the life of a journalist becomes vulnerable to assault from those who get exposed by the revealing of certain truth about them.] The journalist is bound to the commitment of not revealing his source at any cost in any circumstance. The sacred ethical bond with the source is not to be broken by disclosing it. The background briefings given to the press by certain politicians and public figures have added a lot to the bank of information as without attributions a lot is revealed where people test the feedback and then see the reaction for certain action. So journalist with best connections is rated very valuable by their news channels. There are different sources of checking the facts. You have to be sure about any data which you may be using. There are different source agencies for providing you with the authentic data, if you are digging into some crime story or a bank fraud or some scam, you should come out with the correct facts and figures. In this case you will be required to explain the source of the data and reveal the records. Components of the News reporting: The Body and the Lead The Lead should contain the essence of the story. It should give the reader an idea of what the story is about and help the copy desk or sub editor to pick a suitable headline for the story. The lead should answer the five Ws and one H(who, what, where, when, why and how) Example Who) Prime Minister Inaugurated a bones and joints hospital of hundred beds at Srinagar, What) A festival of lights was celebrated by a small group of Hindus at Tin man square in China. Where) after winning 226 seats in 2012 Elections in UP, Smajwadi Party is likely to form Government by 11th March at Lukhnow. When) in wee hours of morning today at 4 A M Delhi was shacked by tremors of an earthquake measuring 6 at the rector scale. Why) A Boy and a girl committed suicide by consuming poison in hotel because their parents had objected to their plan of getting married. How) an army jet fighter crashed on Tuesday due to some snag appearing in engine. The Body While the lead should arouse the readers interest, the body should flow smoothly and logically from the lead. It should expand each of the points mentioned in

the lead and, as far as possible; it should be complete and tight. It should provide all relevant information also. Because, in television journalism, brevity, wit and simplicity, is the essence of good journalist for the scope for lengthy sentence or words is minimum in it. A good reporter will always prefer meeting potential people and developing news sources instead of sitting in office and waiting for the news to happen. A news breaker has to keep his eyes and ears open. He should know where to go for the facts he needs for the story. There are different types of reporting such as objective, interpretative, investigative and crime reporting. Objective Reporting: complete objectivity is impossible because a reporter too is a human being cannot act like a robot. Reporter has a mind of his own and has got ideas emotions and can think his own way. But a good reporter will rise above personal biases and make objective analysis based on facts and truth. There have been instances where for a short fame or name certain journalists got lured and placed the untrue as true but then the truth cannot go unnoticed for a long and when it is revealed such reporters have difficulty in saving their face and job both. In reporting news especially in TV media you have to be extra cautious about the factuality of the word and picture both. You must always remember that the fact is sacred. You must check and cross-check facts from different sources until you are absolutely sure of them. The golden rule is telling the truth. Objective reporting should not be misunderstood with dull reporting, it means fair and impartial reporting that is free of any personal bias or prejudice. Interpretative Reporting: When you as journalist file a report with your interpretations and combine the facts with your own suggestions and delve on the nature of the development taking place behind any report, you are interpreting information and its significance. As you must have watched during the voting on Lokpal Bill in both houses of parliament the political correspondents of different channels were not only reporting the event but were elaborating on the issue of article 252 and 253 of the constitution which was contently the topic of concern for maintaining the federal power structure of the country in tact. The correspondents as such were able to predict the outcome of the bill in the upper house of parliament much before the bill got deferred in the house. Political correspondent of Times Now Channel Navika Kumar was very accurately giving the analysis and would interpret every move of the political parties with very accurate prediction. Interpretative reporting thus goes behind the news and brings out the hidden significance of an event and separates truth from falsehood. Investigative Reporting: Although almost all stories need to be thoroughly investigated, however, the investigative reporter is expected to dig deeply beyond the facts stated in the hard news. Though we may face difficulty in defining the term, we cannot ignore the concept of investigative journalism. But it should never be confused with yellow journalism. There have been instances where people after committing heinous crimes escaped punishment from courts due to lack of evidence or evidence was evaded or manipulated by the criminal. The journalist deeply investigated the story, saw that which was otherwise left unseen by the authorities brought facts to life and made criminal face the court yet again and got the criminal appropriately punished. Not only one, there are hundreds of such cases where journalists have also saved innocents from undergoing any

further punishment after their innocence was brought into the notice of concerned authority through rigorously digging into the fact and finding the truth behind it. The big scam in real-estate, the collusion of Government and private builders, the common wealth games scam and 2G scam are some of the recently circulated stories of investigative journalism. The Jasica Murder case and the Amirs case of spending long years behind bars without any involvement in the act of terror are certain examples of deeply investigative stories. Crime Reporting: Although crime reporting cannot be without the elements of objectivity and investigative nature, its important to deal with it separately for it will have different consequence over the social aspects of the community concerned than the mere objective or investigative depiction of a mere fact would have. It has much to do with the repercussion and the aftermath of the act of crime in any social milieu. Crime is fallowed by apprehending and punishing the culprit and healing and compensating the affected. One more aspect is more important to society, contemplating the reason of the crime and ensuring its eradication from the society. But it has been observed that media is feeling interested in the sensationalistic depiction of crime and wants to keep viewers glued to the channel any how. Crime reporter should desist from covering the story in such manner that it satisfies the morbid curiosity or aims at sensation mongering. Accidents, assaults, fires, burglary, rape and molestation etc, should be reported with care and caution. Legal aspects of reporting need to be observed and maintained during coverage of such stories. A television channel aired a story painting all teenage school going girls in black by highlighting that school going girls would often bunk classes for enjoying fun time with boyfriend outside, without their parents having any clue of it. This story was not appreciated in public. Thus we have seen in the above stated facts that News Room in any TV channel has three type of news pouring the room. One can be spontaneous, other could be planned and yet other could be enterprised. In the purest sense ideas for news stories evolve in one of the three patterns. The spot news stories cover stories that happen without prior knowledge during the news circle. Traffic accidents, fatalities, burning buildings, and criminal acts fall into this category. As these are breaking stories, the newsroom must respond quickly; a building wont burn for ever nor will a hostage stand off necessarily last a day. You need to cover it the moment it should have occurred. If you do not cover it in time your loss could be gain for the rival channel. The second source, planned news is planned beforehand. There is a bulk of news known beforehand well in advance of the actual programme. Government meetings or private public corporate events are known well before the actual event takes place. You would know it through one invite from the department or the organization holding such event. The importance of the said event can be judged on many counts. Who is organizing the event and why? Who will attend the event and will the event have any impact on the people and the viewers. The third category is the enterpised news, which includes stories generated independently by the journalists. Here the reporter digs at the facts and investigates documents asks questions in the neighborhood, and constructs a story from them. Remember he does not concoct a story; he builds a story based on actual facts.

Blending all stories into a cohesive newscast is a challenging task; news assignment desk plays a very crucial role in organizing the flow of these stories which come pouring into the newsroom from variant and different directions and sources. Assignment editors run the assignment desk. While reporters track individual stories and producers focus on newscasts, the assignment editors are responsible for collecting and organizing most of the source material that comes into news room. Some times assignment desk is a small setup, there may be only one person in charge of assignment and then only during day time. At some small TV stations the news director or even a assistant news director functions as assignment editor. Almost everything takes place at the assignment desk because that is where all the information from different sources is put together and given the shape of a news bulletin. The assignment board is maintained by the desk and this board shows the names of the reporters sent at different locations for coverage of news. Keeping the board up date is essential and it is the duty of assignment editor or desk assistant. There is proper fallow up of the previous newscast. The assignment editor reaches the news room early in the morning and takes stock of the all previous stories prepares a rundown chart of the last days stories from 11. pm in the evening to the morning newscast. This gives him a complete idea of the previous newscast, who read it and what were the stories. The chart headings would read like: Number: where a story appears in the newscast. Slug: A two or three word description of the story Type: whether a story is simply read by the anchor, has video accompanying or is a field package from a reporter. Cam source: What studio or outdoor cam was used or tape machine must be used. Talent: Which anchor read the story? Total running time: (TRT) in minutes and seconds. Time Code: To locate quickly a story on tape by the TC number. Gphx: tells the director what graphics are needed, if any. Dear student, you should write the sources of news in detail, I have given certain clues in this note please explore for your reading and learning these sources in-depth.