: Where Do Online Journalists Get Their Info? How do online journalists report on things if they aren't actually out in the field reporting? I'm assuming they simply watch mainstream news, listen

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As I worked for a major news portal, about 97% of news was purchased from news agencies (the remaining 3%, authored by own journalists and columnists was kept for publicity - definitely not for articles, but for bragging rights of "having own journalist team".)

These agencies, in order, purchase their news from independent journalists doing their own "hands-on" research, or from newspapers/magazines employing own journalists.

Journalists doing research don't need to be physically present "at the site" either. There's phones, there's social media, even Google StreetView to show the location; Social Media will very likely have eyewitnesses with own recordings of the events, who can be contacted for publishing rights (or sometimes their publications taken without asking...).

Traditional hands-on journalism, being slow and costly, is slowly vanishing. It's still valuable - it's prestigious; having own reporter on site is viewed as "elite"; that's the stuff for the front page. But for each newspaper there's only one front page and good several pages inside to fill - that content is usually purchased, or assembled from sources that don't require leaving one's desk.

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