News is anything that captures the attention of readers. It must stand out for being interesting, relating to the culture or people that it is written for, and be factual enough to ensure its accuracy. It must also be brief, clear, picturesquely presented and accurately interpreted so that its audience can take advantage of it.
The main purpose of news is to inform the readers. It gives them facts and updates about the current events in the world. It also has educational values as it enlightens the readers about different courses and career options that are available. It helps in reducing the confusion between political and social issues.
There are many types of news in the world. Some are more significant than others. For example, news of a terrorist attack is more important than one of an ordinary car accident.
Objectivity and Fairness: The news must be objective to avoid any bias from the reporters. It must be fair to all sides in the story and not favor any party or individual. Hence, the journalists have to cross check all the news and ensure that they are unbiased and truthful.
Usefulness: A news item is useful for the readers because it gives them updated information about the happenings in their lives and helps them to live a healthy life. It also gives them a chance to know about the government policies, their aims and objectives. Moreover, it makes them aware about the weather forecasts and train timings etc.
It is important to write the news article in an inverted pyramid manner. The first paragraph gives the most important information and later paragraphs provide more details. This structure is similar to that of a novel in which the main plot is established from the beginning.
The headline should be catchy and make the reader want to read more about the topic. It should also be emotional evoking or create curiosity in the reader. It should also be concise, as readers often do not make it all the way through a long article.
In the digital age, audiences are now selecting and disseminating stories on social media (Olmstead et al. 2012; Hermida et al. 2012; Phillips 2012) and this can have an impact on news selection decisions. This can be seen by the number of times that news items are shared or commented upon on social media websites, as well as the number of clicks that they get on those pages.
In addition to this, there is a new element of interest in the study of news, namely the influence of the role of the audience on news selection decisions. This is a phenomenon that was not included in Galtung and Ruge’s original research, but has been widely discussed since then.