Who informs the news of a breaking event?

Tha Gopher

This question will no doubt sound incredibly obvious and stupid to any of Id presume many users here doing journalism etc but feck it, its always intrigued me

My question is basically, who informs the news of a breaking national story? I know, lets say, with international news, the way it gets to our news screens is that an AP/Reuteurs/whoever reporter in Moscow is informed of, lets say, an air crash in the east of the country, and then sends that information to the news channels that subscribe to their service

But internally, how does RTE find out something has happened? Lets say, in Offaly this morning there is a house fire in which 4 people die. The fire breaks out at 5am, all are confirmed dead by 6am and its on Aertel and rte.ie by 7am. Out of curiousity, who tells RTE? I should think the hospital, fire service and gardai have more important things to do in the immeadiate aftermath than inform the media. Fair enough, in cases such as kidnap, prisoner escape etc it will be beneficial to inform the media, but why for this? I cant really imagine a fire officer thinking as he puts out the blaze "someone better get onto RTE regarding this soon" . Does RTE employ local look-outs so to speak who ring them up as soon as they spot a local event potentially newsworthy? I remember when I was in the US years ago, an ad on the radio inviting listeners to call up with events that they witness that require news coverage

Boggles

Tha Gopher wrote:

This question will no doubt sound incredibly obvious and stupid to any of Id presume many users here doing journalism etc but feck it, its always intrigued me

My question is basically, who informs the news of a breaking national story? I know, lets say, with international news, the way it gets to our news screens is that an AP/Reuteurs/whoever reporter in Moscow is informed of, lets say, an air crash in the east of the country, and then sends that information to the news channels that subscribe to their service

But internally, how does RTE find out something has happened? Lets say, in Offaly this morning there is a house fire in which 4 people die. The fire breaks out at 5am, all are confirmed dead by 6am and its on Aertel and rte.ie by 7am. Out of curiousity, who tells RTE? I should think the hospital, fire service and gardai have more important things to do in the immeadiate aftermath than inform the media. Fair enough, in cases such as kidnap, prisoner escape etc it will be beneficial to inform the media, but why for this? I cant really imagine a fire officer thinking as he puts out the blaze "someone better get onto RTE regarding this soon" . Does RTE employ local look-outs so to speak who ring them up as soon as they spot a local event potentially newsworthy? I remember when I was in the US years ago, an ad on the radio inviting listeners to call up with events that they witness that require news coverage

Rueters for the world, reporters everywhere, Garda Press Office for Ireland.

Irishstabber

Stringers I do believe.(correct me if im wrong)
They are people who work for Regional news agencies etc... Offaly Tribune or something like that etc.
They relay the news to RTE etc.

Am I wrong?

flogen

decent question, I guess there are a number of different answers too.
Local media is one, the general public is another, but to use your example, I'd imagine one explanation would be that RTE has staff in Offaly who's job it is to keep an eye on events. They may just ring the Garda PO every day and ask if there are any events that can be reported, or else the Garda PO contact the reporter with details after the event. The Gardai are generally happy to co-operate with the media on regular stories like these as long as the media don't cross any lines (such as privacy of victims and families)
I'm not 100% certain, but I would say that there is no 1 way for the media to find out what's going on.

monument

Tha Gopher wrote:

But internally, how does RTE find out something has happened? Lets say, in Offaly this morning there is a house fire in which 4 people die. The fire breaks out at 5am, all are confirmed dead by 6am and its on Aertel and rte.ie by 7am. Out of curiousity, who tells RTE? I should think the hospital, fire service and gardai have more important things to do in the immeadiate aftermath than inform the media.

That’s why the authorities have press offices, for example the Garda press office…

Among the other duties carried out by Office personnel include attendance at major incidents/events, organising and setting up Press Conferences, liaison with film makers/documentary makers, maintenance of the Garda Website and editing of the Garda Síochána Annual Report

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/hq/pro.html

Tha Gopher wrote:

Fair enough, in cases such as kidnap, prisoner escape etc it will be beneficial to inform the media,

Possibly not always the case, the criticisms of both RTE and the Garda Press Office after John Carthy was shot down at Abbeylara comes to mind...

From a number of hours into the siege and at least by 9.00 p.m. on 19th April, 2000, it appears that concern had been expressed by locals regarding the effect of the media presence. Ann Walsh, cousin of John Carthy, has informed the Tribunal that she stated to the gardai that the media were not helping the situation and inquired whether the gardai had authority to move them away.

On Thursday shots were discharged by John Carthy at 9.06 a.m., 9.42 a.m., 1.08 p.m. and 5.06 p.m.. John Carthy exited the house at approximately 5.45 p.m..

From information received by the Tribunal it seems that it was not until the “Five Seven Live” programme on R.T.E. radio on the 20th of April, 2000, that John Carthy’s name was disclosed nationally. He was also named in a television report on national television (T.V. 3) shortly after 5.30 p.m.. Brief details of his medical history were also disclosed in the latter report.
Concern has been expressed by members of the public as to the connection between media coverage and the events which were unfolding. From information available at present, however, it is unclear at this stage whether there is any connection between media coverage on the one hand; and the timing of the discharge of the shots and the exit of John Carthy from the house on the other hand?

http://www.barrtribunal.ie/OpenStatement.html#media

Was just thinking on this a bit more...

I can only imagine, I’d say it depends on the story, but as Flogen said the is usually no number one source…

With things like road crashes, power cuts, gas leaks, major fires etc the authorities are in some cases somewhat obligated to pass on accurate information to the media as soon as possible… ‘Nobody was occupying the school in central Dublin when the blaze started, fire-fighters now have the fire under control’ from the media, is a hell of a lot better then “did yea hear the school is on fire? Is little Johnny still at school?” from the one in the local shop.

In general, news comes from a number of sources, and details for one piece of news can come from multiply source. Sources that I can think of off the top of my head… press releases, press conferences, on-site reporters (from the crash sites, to a court rooms), ‘whistle blowers’ (from Garda, to tribunal employees), leaked documents, court documents, ‘freedom of information’ releases, good old Joe Public (even if they are just the starting point), other news outlets [not just from news agencies or freelancers, and the source is not always accredited (some times for different reasons), on more then a few occasions I’ve read/heard something like ‘a Sunday newspaper reported’].

Going off topic here a bit, I use to think it is always better for the source to be as clear as possible. But an experience I’ve had of getting stick for making it clear in a number of articles that main source was a press release has every since make me think some publications could be right in presenting an authoritarian front, at least for their audience.

The worst part about it was this was on a bloody computer games website - the vast majority of games and other entertainment news (‘rightly’ or ‘wrongly’) comes from releases, even what’s published on well respects publications. I think the key is what you add that’s not in the release, when/where suitable/possible.