News Essay for BA English

 


News

News is factual information about current events. News is reported by a variety of sources, such as newspapers, magazines, television shows, cable and radio programs, Web sites, email messages. The purpose of the news is to inform, to educate and to entertain. It is commonly thought that NEWS is an acronym of the four main directions (north, east, west, and south), as news comes from everywhere.

Broadly news is divided into two

v  Hard news

v  Soft news

Hard news refers to the news stories that have a big impact at the society as a whole and need to be reported urgently. Examples include news on politics, crime, economics, international affairs, natural calamities, riots etc.

Soft news on the other hand refers to the stories that provide other background information about world events, human interest stories or entertainment news.  Examples include sports news, celebrity news, or human-interest stories that deal with emotions.

News Determinants or News Selection is done using certain criteria.

Primary Criteria

a.       Impact - The number of people whose lives will be influenced in some way by the subject of the story.

b.      Unusual - If a dog bites a man it is not a news but if a man bites a dog it is unusual.

c.       Prominence - News about a widely known person. E.g. Celebrities, Sachin Tendulker, Shahi Tharoor, Sharu Khan etc.

Secondary Criteria

a.       Conflict – Conflict and tension is more interesting than peace. Conflict between husband versus wife, parent versus child etc.

b.      Proximity - Stories about events and situations in one's home community are more newsworthy than events that take place far away.

c.       Timeliness - Recent events have higher news value than earlier happenings.

d.      Currency - More value is held with the trending news stories that are relevant to public concern rather than topics that few people care about. E.g., Budget news.

Newspaper carries a lot of significance for humans. Reading newspaper can develop our reading habit and make us more fluent.

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