What is News?

News is any item of current interest that is reported in a newspaper, magazine, radio or TV. News stories can be either hard, soft, positive or negative in tone. They are written to inform, educate and entertain the reader.

In deciding what to report, journalists rely on a combination of factors to assess the newsworthiness of an event. These include: Exclusivity (news relating to things that are not available elsewhere), Badness, Conflict, Magnitude, and Surprise. However, these are not to be seen as a fixed taxonomy and a story may often stray from one category into another.

Generally speaking, a story will only be newsworthy if it is unusual, interesting or significant and if it is new. For example, a man who gets up in the morning, eats breakfast and takes a bus to work does not make much news because this is something that happens all the time. On the other hand, if this man were to win a Nobel Prize, be elected President or fall into a scandal then this would be newsworthy.

Most newspapers and magazines are geared towards a particular demographic. For example, if a paper is about Kansas City then its audience will be people who live in the area. National papers, on the other hand, advertise to a wider audience and will cover global events as well as local news. In order to ensure that their articles are of interest to the readers, journalists should take care to write clearly and attractively. They should also ensure that the facts are correct and do not contain cliches.