What Is News?

What Is News?

News can be easily defined as new or interesting information or fresh events reported. News is something, somewhere, that someone doesn’t want us to know. “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, but when a man bites a dog, that is news”.

News has five basic functions and these are, to inform, to explain or interpret, to entertain, to serve a community and to sell newspapers. News has a number of interests such as negativity [all news is bad news], proximity [local issues], relevance [to demographic of readership], and immediacy [news from elsewhere], scale [importance]. Other elements include; interest, drama, entertainment.