Hearsay is a statement introduced into court, that an individual said out of court, if that statement is used for the purpose of showing the truth of its contents.
In Canada, see generally R. v. Khelawon, 2006 SCC 57 at para 35. In the US, see Federal Rules of Evidence 801 (technically only applicable in federal courts, but reflects the essentially universally accepted definition of hearsay):
“Hearsay” means a statement that:
(1) the declarant does not make while testifying at the current trial or hearing; and
(2) a party offers in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement.
So, it will depend on why the deputy is telling the court that the out-of-court witness said X.
If the purpose was, for example, to establish the reasonableness of the deputy's suspicion for a search or arrest, then it will not be hearsay. What matters in that case is merely that fact the deputy was told X, not that X is true.
If instead, X was introduced for the purpose of proving the crime, then that would be clearly be using X for the truth of its contents, and it would be treated as hearsay.
No witness has any "default" weight (although expert witnesses have a different scope of permissible evidence). Every witness is judged independently. It would be an error of law, reversible on appeal, if a judge revealed that they gave a category of person more "default legal weight" or if they instructed the jury to do so. Certain practices and experience can lead to more credibility and reliability: contemporaneous note-taking, a familiarity with a given scene, etc., but not the identity of the witness.
