I work at a regional station regularly, and I think it’s basically the only sort of newscasting that is reliable.
Imagine that we’d get our info out of Donetsk directly from Donetsk on the ground reporting.
That’s a hyperbole in practical terms perhaps - or is it? In any case the only news brought without necessary structural generalization and crude selection, is regional news.
I’m not saying this is the ultimate thing, but as far as newscasting goes, you either have brilliant long term rogue research journalism or a team close to the ground of what’s happening.
I have worked on national and in regional tv; what I saw nationally was virtually pure fantasizing, bending stories, doing everything to make them more spectacular, to the point of reversing the truth. Regionally, I have been witness to exactly one attempt at lying in my many years of freelancing there, and that did not get aired.