News is information about current events obtained in an accurate and fast manner, conveyed to the public in an objective manner. It is the oxygen of democracy – without it democracy cannot breathe.
The most important thing to remember when writing news is that it should not contain your own opinions or biases. It should focus on factual information and provide quotes from sources to add depth and perspective to the story. It is also a good idea to use the inverted pyramid format, placing the most important facts at the top of the article and then filling in the details.
While it is true that everything happens every day, not all of it is newsworthy. For example, if a man wakes up, goes to work on the bus and comes home, it is not newsworthy, because nothing unusual has happened. On the other hand, if a coup is taking place in a neighbouring country it will be newsworthy.
Other criteria that can help determine whether something is newsworthy are its impact, proximity, controversy and prominence. For example, an archbishop saying that the Roman Catholic Church should ordain women priests is a significant piece of news, because it has the potential to change the Church’s policy on this issue. If an event is controversial, then it will be newsworthy because people have strong opinions about it. Finally, prominence refers to the importance of a person or organisation involved in an event; for example, a politician’s speech is newsworthy because it will influence people’s opinion of that politician.