News is a way of conveying information about current events to the public. The news media are a major source of information in the world and there is a wide range of news outlets including radio, television and newspapers. Each of these have their own particular methods and styles but they all share some basic characteristics of News.
People often say that the main function of a newspaper is to inform but in reality they do more than that. They also educate and entertain the reader. They make decisions about which stories to report and how to present them, taking into account their own political and economic interests as well as the needs of their audience. They create a culturally-shared vision of the world by selecting what to tell us and how to tell it.
How do journalists decide what’s important enough to be included in the news? They take into account a variety of factors, including timeliness, drama, consequence and proximity. Events that have an immediate impact are typically newsworthy, for example, a bombing or a plane crash. Stories that have a significant impact on society or politics are likely to be considered newsworthy too, such as a coup d’etat.
They may also be interested in the extent to which an event is unusual or out of the ordinary. They may be drawn to stories with a human element, such as a story about a person who is famous or has been successful in some way. They may be more interested in a story that is exciting or surprising, or which has an underlying theme of good versus evil.
There are also some factors that determine whether an event has the potential to become newsworthy, for example, is it likely to be shared or spread virally across social media? The emergence of the Internet has changed the way we consume our news and has put a lot of pressure on traditional news organizations, which may be struggling to survive.
Regardless of how they decide what is newsworthy, it’s important for people to tune in to a variety of news outlets so that they can get a broad picture of how different views of the world are presented. This will help them to develop a more open-minded perspective on the world and perhaps challenge some of their own biases too.
In addition, it’s a good idea to check out the AllSides crowd-sourced bias rating for various news outlets before choosing which ones to subscribe to. This will give you a good idea of which outlets tend to lean left, right or centre and how balanced they are.
While this article has outlined the main characteristics of News, it is impossible to cover every aspect of the subject in detail. For further reading, the links at the bottom of this page will take you to a list of books and articles that will help you to explore News in more depth.