# News Sources
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 18, 2001, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322 "2001-09-18T02:59:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Erika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erika)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/1 "2001-09-18T02:59:52Z")
For major, world-wide type events, how many independent “news providers” are there out gathering information? How much of it trickles down through AP, CNN, and other such reasonably high up sources? By the time you’re looking at small-town newspapers, virtually everything seems to be taken from AP sources. How far up do you have to go before you’re getting first-hand reports from people on the scene?
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### Author:  [@curious\_george](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curious_george)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/2 "2001-09-18T15:21:34Z")
Is there a problem with getting news from national sources like AP and CNN? Do you expect every small town newspaper to send reporters to the WTC? It just makes sense to me. Local stories are covered by local reporters. National news is converd by national reporters.
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### Author:  [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/3 "2001-09-18T15:32:24Z")
It depends. Because NYC is such a media center, I’d wager there were representatives from literally thousands of different media outlets in Manhattan on Sept. 11. Of course, that counts reporters for things like Women’s Wear Daily and ESPN in addtion to the reporters for big US papers, international reporters, etc.
Remote, isolated places like Afghanistan are another matter. I’d guess there are only a few dozen foreign news teams in the whole country at the moment.
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### Author:  [@Damhna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damhna)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/4 "2001-09-18T15:45:24Z")
You get what you pay for.
We have a relationship with Reuters and the wire and the content if not entirely without _some_ editorial influence is certainly a lot less em… tinkered with. It’s going to happen though. I dont know anyway to get first hand than to pay for it and developing a network like the news agency have of worldwide contributors isnt going to be easy.
Interestingly we have also found TAAS to be one of the better sources.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/5 "2001-09-18T16:21:04Z")
TAAS ?
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/6 "2001-09-18T17:55:24Z")
[Tass](http://www.itar-tass.com/)?
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### Author:  [@coosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coosa)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2001, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-sources/82322/7 "2001-09-18T22:43:38Z")
I got fed up with CNN, ABC, etc. several days ago when I found [Reuters News Online](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/top_stories)
Faster, more complete news without the heavy ‘pro-america’ spin of US news reports (and therefore more accurate). Lots of links to articles in newspapers all over the world, and sometimes several versions of the same ‘story’.
I was quite astonished at the sometimes alarming difference between what was being said, and _how_ it was being said, around the world, and what/how things were being reported in the US. I will never trust US news sources again - compared to Reuters, they are incompetent,slow, and dangerously biased. They certainly do not publish the unvarnished truth - they tailor everything to what they think will be more acceptable to the American public, or will be the most sensational.