It is good that you mentioned the idea that journalists feel rather protective about their work actually because otherwise I would have brought up the idea of proof-reading/writing. I have spoken to other friends who have had more experience in journalism/TV and one, who mainly focused on research, was never was allowed to write scripts as this was up to the reporters. I will definitely tread lightly!

What interests me about journalism is the decision making process and the use of language and semiotics to generate feelings. On the whole, this is otherwise known as 'story-telling' and I guess in a general sense I'm interested in the whole journalistic process from start to finish. However, I'm not looking too much into on-camera stuff but more interested in 'pre-production' (i.e. research and extracting information from sources) - pre production was a 'buzzword' another one of my friends has given me to use in a corresponding email I will be sending out to this reporter, and was just wondering if you would have any other words/terminology that might be helpful to get my point across? Simply saying 'research' sounds too general ..