The process of how stories migrate from the streets onto the pages of each edition has morphed radically since the first St Albans Review came off the presses.

The starting point of everything that happens at the paper is finding and breaking stories. This is done by the paper’s team of reporters and comes about in myriad ways.

Sometimes it is through the hundreds of emails and calls we receive at the newsdesk every day or by simply being on our patches and seeing something happening.

In recent years social media has become an increasingly important part of this process.

Every day thousands of people use websites such Twitter or Facebook to talk about what is going on around them.
If there is something interesting happening in their area and they want more information they often contact the paper via our social media accounts.

This can provide the paper with an incredibly expansive and swift network of information about what is going on in the patch.

This process, no doubt, would seem entirely alien and incomprehensible to the journalists who produced that first edition of the paper in 1973.

But the most important method of finding stories for reporters would be as familiar to them as to my team today.
That is developing a trusted network of contacts who will keep us informed about the goings-on in our area.

Despite all the new technology and gadgets the best method of finding stories is a time-honoured one – getting out into the patch to meet people face-to-face.

There is no substitute for sitting down with someone in their home and taking the time discuss things over a cup of tea.

It helps the reporter get a much fuller picture of the person, or people, they are writing about and it gives the contact a better chance to build up a relationship with the reporter.

Committing a person's story to print is a privileged and delicate task, and one which takes a leap of trust from those being written about.

So meeting someone in the flesh is invaluable for both parties involved.

On most occasions people contact the paper for prosaic reasons.

They want to organise coverage for a community event or arrange for a photographer to visit.

Yet there are many people who contact the paper because they feel they have nowhere else to turn.

Often they are desperate.

The fourth estate is not the first place most people turn to when they are in a predicament.

So people often contact us because they feel all other options are exhausted.

Whether it is public bodies that are ignoring them or they feel they have been mistreated and there is no other recourse.

These calls are often the starting point for a reporter to investigate and the source of many engaging stories in the paper.

The way stories find their way into the paper is truly manifold and there is no science to gathering news, it is very much an art.

Just as the methods we use to find stories are a hybrid of old and new, so are the tools we use.

Every journalist in the newsroom is proficient in shorthand and the humble notepad and pen are still the staple instruments of the trade.

However, newer tools such as iPads and iPhones are playing an increasingly prominent role.

They enable us to use social media to cover events and shoot videos and photos at the touch of a button.

The result is that reporters have more ways to cover stories and more elements to add to them.

For instance, in the past reporters would have simply taken notes at a council meeting to write up a story afterwards.

These days a reporter will still take notes, but will also be live-tweeting the proceedings and interacting with readers as it happens.

The internet has not only meant more information than ever before is available at the same time.

It has also dramatically increased the speed of news gathering.

Mike Wright is chief reporter for the St Albans and Harpenden Review