News is a way of informing the public about current events and issues happening locally, nationally, and internationally. It is a vital source of information that keeps people up to date on what is going on in their world and helps them understand the complexity of the issues they face. It provides analysis and interpretation, and gives people the opportunity to form opinions and make decisions based on a deeper understanding of the situation.
News can be found in newspapers, magazines, TV news programs, radio, the Internet, and other media sources. It is often supplied by trained journalists who are also called reporters, although in some cases it is supplied by amateurs who have a strong interest in a particular topic. Regardless of the method of delivery, the decision to report something as news is made by people who work for the particular media organization. These people are usually called editors, news directors or news managers. They sift through recommendations from reporters, assistant editors and other staff members to decide what is worthy of being news. They are sometimes referred to as gatekeepers because they control the flow of information that the media receives and reports.
A story that makes the news is normally new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people. The stronger these elements are, the more likely it is to be reported. But what may be considered important in one society might not be of interest to another. For example, if an insect eats all the corn in a farmer’s field, this might be newsworthy in some societies but not in others, as the bug is a threat to the food supply. The same can be said for stories about famous people – what they are doing, how they look and how they are behaving – as well as news about health, weather, wars, crop diseases and shortages, hospitals and clinics.
Most of the time, though, the news is about non-human things. These include natural disasters like cyclones, bush fires, floods and earthquakes. They also include political events, such as a coup d’etat in a neighbouring country or the formation of a new government.
All of these different aspects of News are important, and it is good to get a wide range of news from many different sources. This allows us to see how a particular issue is viewed by different people and in different ways, and perhaps open our eyes to the fact that there are always multiple points of view and many possible truths about any given topic. It is also important to read and listen to a range of different message sources, so we are not all hearing the same thing and forming the same perspectives on the world around us. It might even be good to tune in to a couple of different TV and radio stations so that we get a more diverse picture of the world.
