What Makes News?

News is information about current events which are of interest to the public. It may also include forecasts of future events or developments which are likely to affect the public in some way. It can be delivered through written or spoken word, television or radio. A news article will usually begin with a headline which must grab attention and create curiosity. The article will then describe the main events and their significance. It will also contain quotes from people who were involved in the event.

A good way to find out what makes news is to read a variety of newspapers and listen or watch different types of news broadcasts. Different people will have varying interests which are reflected in the types of news they will seek out and read. Some of the more common types of news are:

Crime: This may include road traffic offences, burglary, robbery, fraud, rape and murder. Unusual or shocking crimes make especially interesting news.

Weather: The daily lives of people are often affected by the weather, so stories about it will usually attract interest. Stories about unusually high or low temperatures, snow, cyclones and bush fires are of particular interest to the public.

Money: A huge amount of the world’s economy is based on the use of money and so any story about it will usually be a good source of news. Stories about the distribution of money, interest rates, taxation, salaries, bonuses, business investment and compensation claims are all likely to be newsworthy.

Science and Technology: Scientific discoveries and technological developments often make the news, but they have to be new and unusual to qualify as such. For example, a scientist may have discovered that an insect can live on a plant which it has never before inhabited. This would be an interesting development, but in a newspaper or on a general news broadcast it would probably only merit a small paragraph at most.

Culture and Education: Stories about education and the teaching of English, art, music and other cultural activities are a regular feature in most newspapers and news broadcasts. This is because these things are important to the society in which we live and help to shape the attitudes of young people.

Every day a massive amount of information is released, and it is impossible to keep up with it all or even process all that is reported. Most news consumers have a set of news sources that they consider to be the most reliable and trustworthy and they tend to go to those for their daily news fix. Some of these news sources will have a bias and present their news in a biased way. Keeping an eye out for this can help the reader to decide what sources to trust and which ones to avoid.