Coveragewatch

This certainly varies. Where I work, the on-air talent do very little reporting. Their assistants book the interview guests, provide the background research and write up the questions to be asked. The hosts can certainly come up with their own questions if they want to, but often don't. Sometimes hosts come up with ideas for stories, but, typically, that's the role of the producer.

Where I work, the on-air people read what the producers or reporters give them. They are expected to keep up to date on the news so they sound credible reading the news. But, really, if they are good actors, they don't even really have to know what's going on in the news. As long they can they can do good line reads, no one seems to care.

At most of the places I have worked, the anchors and hosts didn't do much reporting. But I will say there were many who wanted to do their own reporting, and some who would have been great at reporting. It’s just that their schedules made this impossible. Now I'm not sure why their schedules were created this way. That's a different question, one about how management structures newsrooms. But it wasn't laziness or ineptness that resulted in anchors and hosts not reporting. Take, for example, radio hosts who are on the air for 4-hour shifts. They have to be around in case any big news breaks before they go on the air. Then they're on the air for four hours straight (sometimes longer). That really only leaves time for them to report on very simple stories. It doesn't allow them to do much investigative work.