What Is News?
News is a report of events that is broadcast or published in the form of written text, audio or video. It is often updated frequently and transmitted to a wide audience over various platforms, such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines or the internet. News articles should be short, concise and factual. They are often written in a formal style, and any opinions or statements should be attributed to a source that has been vetted. Writing a news article can be tricky, as you need to balance being informative with being entertaining.
While there is much debate over what constitutes news, most would agree that it includes reports of recent and important events, such as political events or natural disasters. It may also include scientific discoveries or technological advancements that have a significant impact on the world around us.
News can also be found in entertainment, such as films and music, or sports events. This kind of news is less likely to be controversial, but can still influence people’s views.
A news organization is an organisation that gathers and distributes news to a newspaper, periodical or website. It may be a privately owned company or a government-controlled entity. News organizations are typically free of commercial bias and are designed to inform and educate the public.
The most common way that people get news is through a mass media outlet, such as a TV or newspaper. The most popular and influential mass media outlets include international news agencies like CNN and BBC, and state-controlled TV channels such as China Central Television and Iran’s Press TV.
Regardless of the medium, there are certain elements that are common to all types of news stories. These are called news values. They include:
Exclusivity: Stories generated by, or first available to, the news organisation as a result of interviews, letters, investigations, surveys, polls and so on. Bad news: Stories with particularly negative overtones such as deaths, injury, defeat or loss (of a job, for example). Conflict: Stories concerning conflict such as arguments, splits, strikes and warfare.
Value: The degree to which the story is seen as being worth reporting. This can include a range of factors including impact, the importance of the issue to society, its rarity and how sensational it is.
While Galtung and Ruge’s model of news values remains a useful framework for discussing how news is selected and disseminated, it fails to take into account that in the digital age audiences are now playing an increasingly active role in selecting stories and disseminating them, and this is having a direct effect on journalists’ own news selection decisions. Brighton and Foy, therefore, have developed their own model that takes these changes into consideration. They argue that the key variables in their model are: