News

==Meaning==
===Etymology===
The [[English language|English]] word "news" developed in the 14th century as a special use of the plural form of "new". In [[Middle English]], the equivalent word was ''newes'', like the French ''[[wikt:nouvelles|nouvelles]]'' and the German ''Neues''. Similar developments are found in the [[Slavic languages]] – namely cognates from [[Serbo-Croatian]] ''[[wikt:novost|novost]]'' (from ''[[wikt:nov#Serbo-Croatian|nov]]'', "new"), [[Czech language|Czech]] and [[Slovak language|Slovak]] ''[[wikt:noviny|noviny]]'' (from ''[[wikt:nový|nový]]'', "new"), the [[Polish language|Polish]] ''nowiny'' (pronounced ''noviney''), the [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] ''novini'' and [[Russian language|Russian]] ''novosti'' – and likewise in the [[Celtic languages]]: the [[Welsh language|Welsh]] ''newyddion'' (from ''newydd'') and the [[Cornish language|Cornish]] ''nowodhow'' (from ''nowydh'').<ref name="OED">"News", ''Oxford English Dictionary'', accessed online, 5 March 2015. "Etymology: Spec. use of plural of new n., after Middle French ''nouvelles'' (see novel n.), or classical Latin ''nova'' new things, in post-classical Latin also news (from late 13th cent. in British sources), use as noun of neuter plural of ''novus'' new (compare classical Latin ''rēs nova'' (feminine singular) a new development, a fresh turn of events). Compare later {{smallcaps|novel n.}}"</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Online Etymology Dictionary |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=news |access-date=7 July 2012}}</ref>

[[Jessica Garretson Finch]] is credited with coining the phrase "current events" while teaching at [[Barnard College]] in the 1890s.<ref name="obituary">{{Cite news |date=1 November 1949 |title=Mrs. John Cosgrave Is Dead Founded Finch Junior College: Was Institution's President Nearly 50 Years; Coined 'Current Events' Phrase |publisher=New York Herald Tribune}}</ref>

===Newness===
As its name implies, "news" typically connotes the presentation of new information.<ref name="Stephens13">Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 13.</ref><ref name="Smith7">Smith,''The Newspaper: An International History'' (1979), p. 7. "In the information which [the newspaper] chose to supply, and in the many sources of information which it took over and reorganized, it contained a bias towards recency or newness; to its readers, it offered regularity of publication. It had to be filled with whatever was available, unable to wait until information of greater clarity or certainty or of wider perspective had accumulated."</ref> The newness of news gives it an uncertain quality which distinguishes it from the more careful investigations of history or other scholarly disciplines.<ref name=Smith7 /><ref>Salmon, ''The Newspaper and the [[Historian]]'' (1923), p. 10. Salmon quotes [[Théophraste Renaudot]]: "History is the record of things accomplished. A ''Gazette'' is the reflection of feelings and rumors of the time which may or may not be true."</ref><ref name="Pettegree3">Pettegree, ''The Invention of News'' (2014), p. 3. "Even as news became more plentiful in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the problem of establishing the veracity of news reports remained acute. The news market—and by the sixteenth century it was a real market—was humming with conflicting reports, some incredible, some all too plausible: lives, fortunes, even the fate of kingdoms could depend upon acting on the right information."</ref> Whereas [[historians]] tend to view events as causally related manifestations of underlying processes, news stories tend to describe events in isolation, and to exclude discussion of the relationships between them.<ref name="Park675">Park, "News as a Form of Knowledge" (1940), pp. 675–676. "News is not history because, for one thing among others, it deals, on the whole, with isolated events and does not seek to relate them to one another either in the form of causal or in the form of [[Teleological]] sequences."</ref> News conspicuously describes the world in the present or immediate past, even when the most important aspects of a news story have occurred long in the past—or are expected to occur in the future. To make the news, an ongoing process must have some "peg", an event in time that anchors it to the present moment.<ref name=Park675 /><ref>Schudson, "When? Deadlines, Datelines, and History"; in ''Reading The News'' (1986), ed. Manoff & Schudson; pp. 81–82.</ref> Relatedly, news often addresses aspects of reality which seem unusual, deviant, or out of the ordinary.<ref>Shoemaker & Cohen, ''News Around the World'' (2006), pp. 13–14.</ref> Hence the famous dictum that "Dog Bites Man" is not news, but "Man Bites Dog" is.<ref>Park, "News as a Form of Knowledge" (1940), p. 678.</ref>

Another corollary of the newness of news is that, as new technology enables new media to disseminate news more quickly, 'slower' forms of communication may move away from 'news' towards 'analysis'.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 56. "It is axiomatic in journalism that the fastest medium with the largest potential audience will disseminate the bulk of a community's breaking news. Today that race is being won by television and radio. Consequently, daily newspapers are beginning to underplay breaking news about yesterday's events (already old news to much of their audience) in favor of more analytical perspectives on those events. In other words, dailies are now moving in the direction toward which weeklies retreated when dailies were introduced."</ref>

===Commodity===
According to some theories, "news" is whatever the news industry sells.<ref>Heyd, ''Reading newspapers'' (2012), pp. 35, 82. "... newspapers were defining what news was, categorizing and expanding their domain on the fly. Indeed, Somerville argues that 'news' is not an objective 'historical' concept but one that is defined by the news industry as it creates a commodity sold by publishers to the public."</ref> Journalism, broadly understood along the same lines, is the act or occupation of collecting and providing news.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 3. "The term ''journalism'' is used broadly here and elsewhere in the book to refer to more than just the production of printed 'journals'; it is the most succinct term we have for the activity of gathering and disseminating news."</ref><ref>Shoemaker & Cohen, ''News Around the World'' (2006), p. 7. "[...] for the journalist the assessment of newsworthiness is an operationalization based on the aforementioned conditions. In other words, the practitioner typically constructs a method for fulfilling the daily job requirements. He or she rarely has an underlying theoretical understanding of what defining something or someone as ''newsworthy'' entails. To be sure, individual journalists may engage in more abstract musings about their work, but the profession as a whole is content to apply these conditions and does not care that the theory behind the application is not widely understood. Hall (1981, 147) calls news a 'slippery' concept, with journalists defining newsworthiness as those things that get into the news media."</ref> From a commercial perspective, news is simply one input, along with paper (or an electronic server) necessary to prepare a final product for distribution.<ref>Pettegree, ''The Invention of News'' (2014), p. 6. "News fitted ideally into the expanding market for cheap print, and it swiftly became an important commodity."</ref> A news agency supplies this resource "wholesale" and publishers enhance it for retail.<ref name="Globalization6">Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen, ''The Globalization of News'' (1998), p. 6. "News agency news is considered 'wholesale' resource material, something that has to be worked upon, smelted, reconfigured, for conversion into a news report that is suitable for consumption by ordinary readers. It has also suited the news agencies to be thus presented: they have needed to seem credible to extensive networks of 'retail' clients of many different political and cultural shades and hues. They have wanted to avoid controversy, to maintain an image of plain, almost dull, but completely dependable professionalism."</ref><ref name="MacGregor">Phil MacGregor, "International News Agencies: Global eyes that never blink", in Fowler-Watt & Allan (eds.), ''Journalism'' (2013).</ref>

===Tone===
Most purveyors of news value impartiality, neutrality, and [[Journalistic objectivity|objectivity]], despite the inherent difficulty of reporting without political bias.<ref>Heyd, ''Reading newspapers'' (2012), pp. 36–37.</ref> Perception of these values has changed greatly over time as sensationalized '[[tabloid journalism]]' has risen in popularity. [[Michael Schudson]] has argued that before the era of World War I and the concomitant rise of [[propaganda]], journalists were not aware of the concept of [[media bias|bias in reporting]], let alone actively correcting for it.<ref>Schudson, ''Discovering the News'' (1978), p. 6. "Before the 1920s, journalists did not think much about the subjectivity of perception. They had relatively little incentive to doubt the firmness of the reality by which they lived. […] After World War I, however, this changed. Journalists, like others, lost faith in the democratic market society had taken for granted. Their experience of propaganda during the war and public relations thereafter convinced them that the world they reported was one that interested parties had constructed for them to report. In such a world, naïve empiricism could not last."</ref> News is also sometimes said to portray the [[truth]], but this relationship is elusive and qualified.<ref>Allan, ''News Culture'' (2004), pp. 46–47.</ref>

Paradoxically, another property commonly attributed to news is [[sensationalism]], the disproportionate focus on, and [[exaggeration]] of, emotive stories for public consumption.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 2. "Sensationalism appears to be a technique or style that is rooted somehow in the nature of the news. News obviously can do much more than merely sensationalize, but most news ''is'', in an important sense, sensational: it is intended, in part, to arouse, to excite, often—whether the subject is a political scandal or a double murder—to shock."</ref><ref name="SKH">{{Cite journal |last1=Strömbäck |first1=Jesper |last2=Karlsson |first2=Michael |last3=Hopmann |first3=Nicolas |year=2012 |title=Determinants of News Content: Comparing journalists' perceptions of the normative and actual impact of different event properties when deciding what's news |journal=Journalism Studies |volume=13 |pages=5–6 |doi=10.1080/1461670X.2012.664321|s2cid=55642544 }}</ref> This news is also not unrelated to [[gossip]], the human practice of sharing information about other humans of mutual interest.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), pp. 26, 105–106.</ref> A common sensational topic is violence; hence another news dictum, "if it bleeds, it leads".<ref>Allan, ''News Culture'' (2004), p. 202.</ref>

===Newsworthiness===
Newsworthiness is defined as a subject having sufficient relevance to the public or a special audience to warrant press attention or coverage.<ref>{{Cite web |title=definition of newsworthiness by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedia |url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/newsworthiness |access-date=9 March 2012 |publisher=Thefreedictionary.com}}</ref>

News values seem to be common across cultures. People seem to be interested in news to the extent which it has a big impact, describes conflicts, happens nearby, involves well-known people, and deviates from the norms of everyday happenings.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 33.</ref> War is a common news topic, partly because it involves unknown events that could pose personal danger.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 31.</ref>