Eudora 4.3 is well worth considering if you're not happy with your current email program. Set up today, checks mailed you tomorrow. Journalists pick them up in a bar while chatting with people. Journalists hear about them when talking to friends and family. Readers letters to the editor often spark stories.
Journalists rounds, or beats, are only of the major news sources.
They phone police, and fire departments. Too hot, too cold, tornadoes, floods. Come up with a new angle on a weather story and you've got a winner. Most stories come from people contacting journalists, either face to face, on paper, or by phone. Come up with a local angle on national news, or a new angle on a weather story or any other of the regular story types, and tell a journalist about it.