Old Sources: New Bottles

The question of who journalists speak to, how they obtain information, how they evaluate it and whose stories they choose to repeat is critical to any examination of the changing role of the news media. The purpose of this chapter is to consider whether the existence of the internet with its proliferation of sources and criss-crossing inter-connected networks, is changing the way in which information is gathered and assessed, whether it is changing the power relationships between those who have always had privileged access to journalists and members of less authoritative organisations, or indeed members of the public, and how it is impacting on journalists themselves and their sense of their own public place.