Where does your local BBC get its news?

Ed: On the About the BBC blog Tim Bishop, Head of Regional and Local Programmes at BBC East, has written about the relationship between BBC local radio and regional newspapers.

For many in the newspaper industry, and in particular the local press, the suspicion is that the BBC's Deep Throat is picking up a copy of the local paper.

It's a suggestion repeated fairly frequently and usually without much challenge. So what's the actual evidence?

Six months ago, the BBC and the Newspaper Society, the body that represents regional publishers, decided to work together to find out. The agreed method was simple. Monitor news in one area for a month then look at the stories that overlapped and trace them back to their source. Northamptonshire was chosen. It has two strong evening papers and a weekly run by Johnston Press. The BBC is not unusually well-resourced there.

Read the rest of Where does your local BBC get its news? on the About the BBC blog