The Newspaper Industry: How do stories work?

I have always been interested i how stories are found and then written about. Are the newspapers given the stories by the subjectees themselves? Do the journalists 'steal' stories? How much can be given for a story?


After some research there are many ways a journalist can get a story:

• From another newspaper. The journalist can take a headline from another newspaper and then further the points and create mre emphasis around it. However, this does mean that the newspaper that will run this story will be a day behind the original newspaper. If there is a big story going on at a certain time, and the journalist gets a front pag story, the newspaper is likely to sell multipple copies, no matter if that story was copied.
• A story can come from readers or publicists of celebrities who want journalists to tell their story. This means the journalist has full reign to develop this story as much as they want, if the journalist/newspaper has paid for a story to be told, they often have full ownership of the story so they can be the only paper to run it. Therefore making one certain newspaper the only place to read the story - huge interest in the paper.
• Gaining trust. A journalist may have to work years to gain trust of a particular individual or organisation. To gain this trust, they would have had to write about them before and not be too critical. The individual or organisation must have liked what they had written about them previously.
• Investigating. A journalist will have to be willing to go out and find a story themselves, so will have to delve deeply into something which could be written about. A journalist may go undercover and record a certain place or conversation (E.g Fergie and her 'money deal' was recorded by a journalist via film).
• From the internet. Journalists can use technology to research a story or ideas to write about. If the topic they are researching has already been written about it, it makes their jobs easier as half of the work ha been done for them.
• Press conferences. This is mainly from people who want their story written about and a story which is 'big news' and has been i the newspapers a lot recently. A press conference may be cet up so people can have their say and it also lets a variety of people get involved and give their views. Multiple newspapers will be there however, so the newspaper who runs the story may not be the only one. The conference will probably be filmed, therefore a more reliable, first hand source for the people watching it. It also gives television a chance to report the story.

After the journalist has made notes from the sources, they write up the article and then they take it to the editor who decides when and where the article will be put in the newspaper, if it is put in there at all.
I found this video on YouTube which is of a man who describes 'the cycle of publishing' and how journalists stick to that: