Conference Paper · March 023 citations reads 163 authors

Key words: 
news, information, types of news, hard news, soft news, international news, local news, 
regional news, national news, credibility of news, objectivity of news, news values. 
All of you must be reading newspapers. Why is it called a newspaper? Because it contains news. Have 
you ever thought about how we get news? There are various sources of news. You can hear it on the radio, 
view it on a television channel, read it in a newspaper or surf it on internet in a computer. News is something 
that you come across every day in your life. What makes news? John Bogart has given this comment that 
became synonymous with news. When a dog bites man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a 
man bites a dog, that is news. Though this may seem true, sometimes, when a dog bites a man that can also 
become news. Suppose a dog bites a famous film star, it definitely makes big news. It is said that the letters in 
the word “NEWS” is derived from the four directions as indicated here: N-north, E-east, W- west, S- south. 
This shows that news can come from anywhere.
News is a report of a current event. It is information about something that has just happened or will 
happen soon. News is a report about recent happenings in a newspaper, television, radio or internet. News is 
something that is not known earlier. From all these, we can safely define news as a development that has 
happened in the past 24 hours which was not known outside and which is of wide interest to the people and 
that which generates curiosity among listeners. Let us consider a few examples. You have heard a news 
broadcast on the radio. Twenty people died in a train accident. You don’t consider it as news concerning you. 
Lots of accidents happen in various places every day. But after some time you hear that passengers in the 
compartment which met with the accident are from your village. Now you become more alert. The news 
becomes important for you. You are anxious to know the condition of passengers. Are they safe? Is anyone 
hurt or hospitalized? This is the report of a current event, something that was not known, information of recent 
events and happenings. 
In the railway station, you might have noticed the board displaying the train timings. That is not news. 
That is information. But information becomes news when news value is added to it. For example, if a new 
train timetable is issued by the railways replacing the existing one with changes in train timings, that becomes 
news. 
You might have seen weather reports in the newspapers. It gives the day’s temperature or rainfall. It 
does not make news. It becomes news when there is a sudden change in weather, or when heavy rains lead to 
floods or when continuous absence of rain leads to drought. So information is different from news. News 
should give something new to the readers, viewers or listeners. 
It is generally said that if a news report provides answers to six questions, then it is a perfect news 
item. These six questions include Who? What? Why? When? Where? How? Suppose you hear a news like 
this. A boy is kidnapped while coming back from the school. Naturally the first question that arises in your 

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