Where do journalists get the raw material for their stories — what are typical information sources?

A mix of official channels, agency wires, public records, tip-offs from people, and the journalist's own observations.

Stories rarely arrive fully formed; they come from many feeds, each with different reliability:

• Media releases (Medienmitteilungen) and press conferences — official, but pre-spun by whoever issued them.
• News-agency dispatches (e.g. the Swiss SDA wire) — shared raw reports many outlets republish.
• Social-media posts — fast but unverified.
• Public documents obtained via freedom-of-information law (Switzerland's BGÖ, Bundesgesetz über das Öffentlichkeitsprinzip).
• Letters and emails from the public, informants / confidential sources, and anonymous tips.
• The journalist's own observations and experiences.

The skill is not just collecting these but weighing them: a press release and an anonymous tip demand very different levels of verification before either can be reported.