News is information about an event that has happened or is happening. It can be in the form of a newspaper story, radio report or television broadcast. It may be about a war, crime, accident or natural disaster. It can also be about a sporting event or a political or business development. It is often important to know who is the source of the news before it can be trusted.
People are interested in a range of different things as news, and journalists decide what is and isn’t newsworthy. They try to select events that are new and unusual, interesting or significant, and about people. They also consider how big or small the impact of the news will be. For example, a coup in a neighbouring country will have greater significance than one at home, and a disaster that affects a large number of people is likely to be newsworthy.
A well written piece of news will contain the facts from your research and quotes from people involved in the event. It should not contain your opinions. It will usually follow the inverted pyramid style of reporting, with the most important details appearing at the beginning of the article, and then a series of paragraphs following in decreasing importance. It will finish with a conclusion that restates the main statement (thesis) of the news article and indicates potential future developments relating to it.
In order to engage readers, news stories should be brief so that they can be read quickly, clearly so that they can be understood easily, and picturesquely so that the reader is drawn in. They should be based on reliable sources and be accurate. It is also important to provide enough information that readers can form an opinion about the news item, even if that opinion contrasts with your own.
Having a good knowledge of your audience is essential when writing news, because if you write something that doesn’t interest them, they won’t read it. For this reason, it is a good idea to keep abreast of current affairs, reading newspapers and magazines and listening to radio and television broadcasts.
It is also helpful to be familiar with the work of other journalists and to know what their criteria are for deciding what is and isn’t newsworthy. For example, some commentators on the Internet have suggested that a story is newsworthy only if it is new, interesting, important and contains an element of surprise.
However, this is an overly simplistic view of what makes a story newsworthy. People are interested in many kinds of news, not only in what is unexpected, but also in what is old, important, interesting and significant. For this reason, it is possible that a story that appears to be ‘newsworthy’ but doesn’t really meet any of these criteria might still be published. For this reason, it is a particularly important task for journalists to make sure that they have a broad understanding of what is and isn’t newsworthy.