I've notice a trend of broadcasters using Google Maps and especially Google Earth to show where a robbery, accident, fire, etc. happened in a particular city. They always put "Courtesy Google Earth" in the corner. Sometimes they even use the zooming action of GE.

Now is this something that anyone can do, or do the networks most likely have some agreement with Goggle to do that (Much like Fox using ESPN or ABC's football game in their news review).

Acording to Google's FAQ, you can reproduce images from Google Earth for *personal* use as long as you preserve the copyrights and attributions including the Google logo attribution. If you want to use them for commercial purposes, you need to visit Google's permissions guidelines. You can then submit your application through an online request form.

http://www.google.com/permissions/guidelines.html
http://services.google.com/permissions/application