News is information about a recent event or a change in circumstances. It is a record of what has happened, and it is important because it influences how people feel about events. It can also influence people’s behaviour.
News comes from many different sources and can be a mixture of straight reporting and in-depth news stories. A straight report gives readers general facts about a topic, while an in-depth story takes a smaller subject and researches it heavily. For example, a fire at a residential home could become an in-depth piece that explores the lives of those who were affected by the fire.
When writing a news article, it is best to avoid inserting personal opinion into the article. Instead, if possible, use quotes from those involved in the news and let them do the talking. This way, the reader can form their own opinion about the situation without the writer’s bias entering into it.
It is also important to keep the article up-to-date. It doesn’t do a newspaper any good to publish a news article about something that happened a week ago – the community will already have moved on from it, and they will want to hear about other events.
A good way to decide whether a piece of news is worthy of publication is to look at how many of the five criteria for news are met. The criteria are: new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people. A story that meets all of these is likely to be very newsworthy.
Another factor that goes into determining if a news item is worthy of publication is how well it will be received by the public. A story that is highly controversial, for example, is likely to be more widely read and discussed than a less controversial piece.
Ultimately, what makes a news item is down to the individual society that it lives in and its expectations of what makes for good news. This can be reflected in the language and vocabulary used in the news, as well as the cultural values that underpin it.
In modern times, it has become increasingly common for news items to be sourced from non-traditional sources such as blogs and social media. This can have a big impact on how a news item is perceived, and it is also becoming more common for audiences to be involved in selecting and disseminating stories themselves, which can influence the selection of stories by journalists.