The world's press and media organisations together make up a global information collecting and dissemination network that is probably unrivalled in its capacity and reach, with hundreds of thousands of personnel deployed worldwide on a 24 hour a day basis.
Disaster is always “high value” news, and so reporting on conflict and its human consequences commands very large investment of human resource by press and media organisations. Journalists operate wherever there is the basic infrastructure to allow for the rapid movement of people and information, including places where journalists’ own personal security is at risk. The key imperative for most press and media organisations is to “be among the first” to publish news of an event, ideally the very same day it happens. As a consequence a great majority of casualty recorders make extensive use of press and media reports.
THE RANGE OF SOURCES IN CASUALTY RECORDING, p. 12
